Price spirits from the cost of one measure, then check the cash each shot puts in the till, not just the GP%. A 70cl bottle is 28 shots of 25ml, or 20 of 35ml. From 1 February 2026 the duty alone is about 34p in every 25ml of a 40% spirit and £9.52 in the bottle, before VAT and before anyone's made a penny. On a £15 house vodka a £3.80 single makes 83% GP and £2.63 a shot. Price a £30 premium gin to the same 83% and it's £7.61 a shot, which nobody's paying, so the premium shelf should run a lower GP% and a higher cash margin. And since 1 October 2026, Wales has joined Scotland on a 65p minimum unit price, which puts a 65p floor under every 25ml of 40% spirit on any deal.
Spirits are the easiest drinks on the bar to make money on and the easiest to get wrong without noticing. There's no head, no line cleaning, no fobbing. But one optic or one free pour short of 28 a bottle, one premium bottle priced off a house-vodka rule, or a double priced as a favour, and the margin you think you've got isn't the one you've got.
How many shots in a bottle
| Bottle | 25ml measures | 35ml measures | 50ml doubles (25ml pub) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 70cl | 28 | 20 | 14 |
| 1 litre | 40 | 28 (and 20ml over) | 20 |
| 1.5 litre | 60 | 42 (and 30ml over) | 30 |
That's on paper. In real life a bottle on an optic or a free pour with a jigger gives you 28 if everything goes right, and 27 if the last bit stays in the optic, a jigger gets over-filled a few times, or the bottle gets knocked over at a busy moment. The difference matters more than people think. Lose one shot a bottle on a £3.80 house vodka and that's £3.80 of takings gone per bottle. Ten bottles a week is £38, about £1,980 a year, on the house vodka alone. My arithmetic, illustrative.
Gin, rum, vodka and whisky have to be served in 25ml or 35ml, or multiples, and you pick one for the premises. The drink measures guide has the rules and the notice you need to display.
The duty in every measure
Spirits above 22% ABV pay £33.99 per litre of pure alcohol from 1 February 2026. Liqueurs between 8.5% and 22% pay £30.62. Here's what that comes to, before VAT. My arithmetic on HMRC's rates.
| Strength | 25ml | 35ml | 50ml | 70cl bottle | 1 litre |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 37.5% (most vodka, white rum) | 32p | 45p | 64p | £8.92 | £12.75 |
| 40% (most gin, whisky, dark rum) | 34p | 48p | 68p | £9.52 | £13.60 |
| 43% | 37p | 51p | 73p | £10.23 | £14.62 |
| 17% cream liqueur | 13p | 18p | 26p | £3.64 | £5.21 |
Look at that 70cl line. A 37.5% vodka carries £8.92 of duty before the liquid, the bottle, the distiller, the wholesaler or the delivery. If you're paying £15 a bottle ex VAT for your house vodka, about 60% of what you pay is duty. That's why spirits prices don't come down, and why every February's duty change lands on the spirits list harder than people expect. The alcohol duty guide has the full rates.
What one shot costs you
Cost per shot is the bottle cost ex VAT divided by the shots in it. Use the invoice price, not a price list from six months ago.
| 70cl bottle cost (ex VAT) | Per 25ml (÷28) | Per 35ml (÷20) |
|---|---|---|
| £12 | 43p | 60p |
| £15 | 54p | 75p |
| £20 | 71p | £1.00 |
| £30 | £1.07 | £1.50 |
| £45 | £1.61 | £2.25 |
If the spirit comes with a mixer that's included in the price, the mixer's cost goes into the shot. If you charge for the mixer separately, treat it as its own product with its own GP. Don't leave it floating, because a free mixer on a double is easy to forget and adds up across a Saturday.
A worked spirits list
Four bottles, four prices, all inclusive of VAT at 20%. My numbers, illustrative, not a survey of what pubs charge.
| Bottle (cost ex VAT) | Cost per 25ml | Price inc VAT | Price ex VAT | Cash per shot | GP% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| House vodka (£15) | 54p | £3.80 | £3.17 | £2.63 | 83% |
| Branded gin (£20) | 71p | £4.20 | £3.50 | £2.79 | 80% |
| Premium gin (£30) | £1.07 | £5.00 | £4.17 | £3.10 | 74% |
| Single malt (£45) | £1.61 | £6.00 | £5.00 | £3.39 | 68% |
Read across the cash column, not the GP column. The single malt makes the worst GP% on the list and the most money per shot. If you priced it to the house vodka's 83%, it'd be £11.41 a shot. Nobody's buying that in a local, so it sits on the back bar for two years, which is the worst result of all: cash tied up in a bottle and no sales. The dead stock guide covers what to do with those.
My rule: house and mid-range spirits are where GP% matters, because that's the volume. Premium bottles are priced on cash per shot and on what the customer in front of you will pay. A premium shot that earns 50p more than a house shot and sells is better than one priced to a GP target that doesn't.
Pricing the double
The double is where pubs give money away without deciding to. If a single's £3.80 and a double's £6.00, the second shot is going out at £2.20 inc VAT. That's £1.83 ex VAT, less 54p cost, so £1.30 cash at 71% GP on the extra measure. Still worth having if it trades someone up. But it's a discount, so make it on purpose. Some pubs charge double the single, some knock a bit off. Either is fine as long as you've done the sum.
Putting spirits prices up
Spirits are more price-sensitive than beer. HMRC's own estimate of on-trade elasticity is about -1.25 for spirits against -0.34 for beer, so a 10% rise on spirits would, on that estimate, lose about 12.5% of volume. On the house vodka above, a 10% rise adds about 32p cash a shot, but if you lose an eighth of the shots, the total cash comes out roughly where it started, slightly down. That's a national average across all drinkers, not your pub, so treat it as a warning, not a forecast. The guide to putting prices up has the elasticities and the sums. On spirits I'd look at the premium shelf before the house pour.
The legal floors: minimum unit price and the duty-plus-VAT rule
From 1 October 2026, the minimum unit price in Wales went up from 50p to 65p, the same as Scotland. The minimum price is 65p times the strength times the volume in litres. The Welsh Government's retailer guide works it through for a single 25ml shot of 40% spirit: 65p.
| Serve at 40% ABV | Units | Minimum price in Wales and Scotland |
|---|---|---|
| 25ml | 1.0 | 65p |
| 35ml | 1.4 | 91p |
| 50ml | 2.0 | £1.30 |
| 70cl bottle | 28 | £18.20 |
No pub sells a normal single at 65p. Where it bites is deals: a bundle, a two-for, a bottle-and-mixers package for a function, anything where the alcohol's price per unit gets squeezed. The Welsh guidance tells retailers to set a policy so discounts can't take the price under the minimum. In Wales, selling below it can mean a £200 fixed penalty, £150 if paid within 15 days, or court.
England has no minimum unit price. It has the mandatory licensing condition that bans selling alcohol below duty plus VAT. On a 25ml of 40% spirit that's roughly 34p of duty plus VAT on it, around 41p, my arithmetic. The happy hour guide covers that rule and the promotions you can't run.
Counting spirits so the prices mean something
None of these prices is worth much if the count's wrong. Part bottles are where spirit variances hide: a third of a bottle called half, the back-up bottle in the office not counted, an optic bottle nobody looks at. Weighing a part bottle is the accurate way to count it, tenths by eye is fine if the same person does it the same way every time. The part bottles guide explains both, and the optics versus free pour guide covers which pour loses less.
StockTap counts open bottles by weight or by tenths and shows GP per product, so you can see the premium shelf making its cash or sitting still. It doesn't set your prices. That's your call, and the sums above are how I'd make it.
Common questions
How many shots are in a 70cl bottle?
28 shots of 25ml or 20 shots of 35ml. A 1 litre bottle gives 40 shots of 25ml and a 1.5 litre gives 60. In practice you'll sometimes get one fewer from optic drainage or over-pours, which costs a full shot's price per bottle.
How much duty is in a shot of spirits?
From 1 February 2026, spirits over 22% ABV pay £33.99 per litre of pure alcohol. That's about 34p in a 25ml shot of 40% spirit, 32p at 37.5% and 48p in a 35ml at 40%, before VAT. A 70cl bottle of 40% spirit carries £9.52.
What GP should a pub make on spirits?
There's no official benchmark. House spirits commonly make 80% or more, for example a £15 bottle sold at £3.80 a shot makes 83%. Premium spirits usually run lower GP% but more cash per shot: a £45 bottle at £6 a shot makes 68% and £3.39.
What is the minimum price of a shot in Wales and Scotland?
Both now have a 65p minimum unit price, Wales since 1 October 2026. A 25ml shot of 40% spirit is one unit, so its minimum price is 65p. A 35ml shot is 91p and a 70cl bottle of 40% spirit is £18.20.
Should premium spirits make the same GP% as house spirits?
Usually not. Priced to the same GP%, a premium bottle ends up too expensive to sell. Price premium spirits on cash per shot and what customers will pay, and keep the GP% target for the high-volume house and mid-range pours.
Sources
- Spirits duty £33.99 per litre of pure alcohol (over 22% ABV) and £30.62 (8.5% to 22%) from 1 February 2026: GOV.UK, Alcohol Duty rates, checked 11 October 2026.
- Wales minimum unit price raised from 50p to 65p from 1 October 2026, same as Scotland: Welsh Government, Alcohol price rules change in Wales to help save lives, 1 October 2026.
- The 65p x strength x volume formula, the 65p single shot example, the discount policy advice and the £200 / £150 fixed penalty: Welsh Government, Minimum Pricing for Alcohol in Wales, guide for retailers, checked 11 October 2026.
- The on-trade spirits and beer price elasticities come from HMRC's 2014 working paper, cited in my guide to putting prices up.
- Bottle costs, prices, cash per shot, GP%, the duty per measure and the lost-shot and price-rise sums are my own arithmetic at 20% VAT, illustrative, not a survey.