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JC Events — Mobile Event Service
Free Tool • No Sign-Up

How much alcohol do I buy?

The question every host asks first. Set your guest count, how long the bar is open and what you want poured — you’ll get real bottle counts, not a vague guess. It’s the same list we build for our own clients.

Built by working bartenders • use it whether you book us or not

Your Event

Tell it about the party.

Everything updates as you go. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you ask us to email the list.

Count everyone attending, including the people who won’t drink — that’s handled below.
Cocktail hour through last call. If the bar closes for dinner, don’t count that stretch.
This sets both how many guests drink and how fast they go.
What’s being served
Uncheck anything you’re not putting on the bar and the rest absorbs those drinks.
Conditions
Warm weather means more ice and more drinks per guest. The cushion adds roughly 10% so you don’t run dry at 9pm.
Your Shopping List

What to buy.

100 guests · 4 hours

— drinks to cover

Liquor — 750ml bottles

Wine — 750ml bottles

Beer

Champagne toast

Ice, mixers & citrus

Book any J. Carrico Events package and this whole section is on us — ice, mixers, juices, garnish and drinkware are included. These numbers are here for DIY setups and bartender-only bookings.

Very rough retail budget

A ballpark at mid-shelf prices, before tax. Your actual total swings hard on what brands you buy — treat this as a sanity check, not a quote.

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Take It With You

Email me this list.

We’ll send the numbers above to your inbox so you have them in the liquor aisle. No newsletter, no drip campaign.

Your list and your event details come straight to us, and we’ll reply with the numbers. If you’d like a bar quote alongside it, say so and we’ll include one.

The Math

What this calculator assumes.

No calculator can know your friends. Here’s exactly what’s behind the numbers, so you can adjust with your own judgment.

Two drinks in the first hour, one an hour afterThe industry standard, and it holds up. A four-hour bar works out to about five drinks per drinking guest before adjustments.
Not everyone drinksDepending on the crowd you pick, 70–95% of your guests are counted as drinkers. The rest still need something in a glass — that’s what the zero-proof menu is for, and we bring those ingredients.
A 750ml bottle of liquor pours 16 cocktailsAt a 1.5oz pour, with a little lost to spillage and shaking.
A 750ml bottle of wine pours 5 glassesAt 5oz. Champagne stretches to 6 toast pours per bottle because the flutes are smaller.
Ice is 1.5lb per guest — 2.25lb when it’s hotIce goes into the drink and under the bottles, so it always runs short before anything else does.
Round up, alwaysEvery bottle count rounds up to a whole bottle, and the optional cushion adds about 10% on top. Unopened bottles keep; a bar that runs dry at 9pm doesn’t recover.

Drink responsibly, and check what your venue allows before you buy. J. Carrico Events provides bar service only — all alcohol is purchased and owned by you or your venue.

Middle Tennessee

Now let someone else pour it.

You’ve got the shopping list. We’ll bring the bar, the bartenders, the ice, the mixers and the glassware — and hand you back the bottles you didn’t open.

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