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How to Plan for Your Party/Event

Throwing a big party? We are here to help. Plan to make sure you have enough of everything. But how do you know how much is enough? How do you estimate how much alcohol you need for your event? Below we have a list of things to factor in, and the tools to help better plan for that special party.

Here are a few factors you might consider when buying alcohol:

• How many people are attending?
• How long will your party go on for?
• Are your guests heavy drinkers?
• Will you be serving a variety? Beer, Wine, Spirits, mixed drinks.
• How many mixers you would need if serving mixed drinks?
• White Wine or Red Wine?
• How much alcohol do I need for a Margarita Machine?

Wine/Champagne

A 750ml bottle of wine is equal to roughly 25oz. A standard pour is around 5oz. One bottle of wine is around 5 glasses of wine. Guests will drink 2 glasses the first hour then one glass each additional hour. The toughest part of this is figuring out how many wine drinkers you have out of the number of guests you have attending. To get an estimate of how many wine bottles you would need, use this:

Champagne/Sparkling

A 750ml bottle is equal to roughly 25oz. A Champagne flute typically holds 6 ounces, and a standard pour for a toast is 4 ounces. For toasts, to get an estimate of how many bottles of bubbly you would need for your toast, use this:

Liquor/Spirits

A standard shot and mixed drinks contain about 1.5oz of liquor each. So a 750ml bottle will serve around 16 shots or 16 drinks, a 1L about 22 shots or 22 drinks, a 1.75L about 34 shots or 34 drinks. To figure out how many bottles you’ll need, divide the number of drinks you need by 16 (750ml), 22 (1L) or 34 (1.75L).

Beer/Keg

For large parties, a keg often makes the most sense. If you’re not able to take glass beer bottles or cans into your event venue, a keg may be your only option. We provide 1/2 barrel kegs (15.5 gallons) at our locations. If you serve beer from a keg in twelve-ounce cups, you’ll serve around 165 cups. This equates to around 6-7 cases of 24 packs of beer. Check out our keg tab in the beer section for more information about the types of kegs we carry and what kind of deposits you should expect.

Margarita Machine

In most cases, some margarita rental companies will provide the mix, cups, straws, etc. You'll only have to provide the alcohol. Usually, your rental machine should have instructions attached to the machine, or the rental company will provide instructions. On average, most machines will require 3 liters of alcohol and 1 liter of triple sec for each batch. Depending on how many batches you plan on doing, you’ll just multiply these numbers.