Calories in Cocktails

After a night of indulging in fabulous cocktails, you’ll not only wake up the morning after with photo-sensitivity and a headache, you’ll also wake up having inadvertently consumed a ton of calories.

Why? I hear you ask. Well, the average serving of 94-proof alcohol contains about 115 calories – and that’s before the mixers have been added. Some cocktails contain more calories than a double cheeseburger. In fact, you could be downing more calories in a single glass of drink than found in a small meal (click to see the most calorie laden cocktails). Although the occasional cocktail is unlikely to damage any efforts you are making to maintain or lose weight, it will, if you are treating yourself regularly. If you’re drinking super-caloric cocktails, which essentially are desserts in disguise, even exercise may be unable to keep the number on the scales from creeping upwards.

Because a cocktail tastes precariously light, fruity and non-alcoholic, doesn’t mean it is any of those things. On the contrary. Once you add the vodka, rum, gin or whiskey, which all contain a greater percentage of calories than beer and wine, you’ve got to throw fruit juice, syrups and sodas into the mix. Coca-Cola alone contains 105 calories (per eight fluid ounces) and orange juice 56 calories per serving. The calories just keep stacking up. You’ll do best to avoid choices such as chocolate martinis and hot buttered rum. And, before you think you can skirt round it by drinking fewer cocktails, but with a bigger kick, remember that the higher the proof, the greater the calorie content.