The sales of non alcoholic and alcohol free gin and spirits continues to grow at pace. However, if you are new to the sector, you will likely have questions. Many look identical, taste nearly identical and are marketed the same as their alcoholic versions, so you might be asking “how many measures of non alcoholic gin equals one gin?”.
How many measures of non alcoholic gin equals one gin?
The best way to think of this and work it out is to compare the alcohol in a standard gin and that of a non alcoholic gin.
A standard gin has 40% ABV
A non alcoholic gin has 0.5% ABV at a maximum.
| Type of gin | Alcohol by volume |
| Alcoholic gin | 40% |
| Non alcoholic gin | 0.5% |
With some simple math jiggery pokery (40/0.5), you can see that an alcoholic gin has x80 the alcohol than a non alcoholic gin.
In general, you would have to drink 80 measures of non alcoholic gin to equal one measure of alcoholic gin in terms of alcohol. There is more alcohol in one jigger of alcoholic gin than a whole bottle of non alcoholic gin.
How many measures of alcohol free gin equals one gin?
Perhaps the more common form of low alcohol gin you will see is the alcohol free versions which generally have “0.0%” displayed prominently for advertising purposes.
The 0.0% is true to one decimal place and the maximum alcohol they contain will be just below 0.05%
A standard gin has 40% ABV
A non alcoholic gin has 0.05% ABV at a maximum.
| Type of gin | Alcohol by volume |
| Alcoholic gin | 40% |
| Alcohol free gin | 0.05% |
If we bring out of math hat again and work out how many multiples alcohol free gin is from alcoholic gin we get 800! (40/0.05)
This means that 800 measures of alcohol free gin equals one measure of alcoholic gin. You would need to drink 800 jiggers or shots of alcohol free gin to get the same alcohol as in one jigger or shot of alcoholic gin. Quite incredible.
What is a standard gin?
What is a standard gin indeed?! If you enjoy the gin world as i do you will know just how diverse it can be.
The USDA, try and define the standard gin, and in fact the standard distilled beverage. They state that it has 80% proof which equals 40% alcohol by volume. From my experience that is roughly right. A lot of spirits you will see are 37.5% ABV but up to 42.5%, so rounding into 40% seems ok.
How much alcohol is in a non alcoholic gin?
Labelling on non alcoholic gins is often confusing. I have written a full article on the issues and to try and explain them,
Non alcoholic can be a generic, catch all term for all the gins under 0.5% ABV. However, when you are in the US and UK, the term should only be applied to gins between 0.05-0.5% ABV.
The easiest way to categorically find out how much alcohol a bottle of gin contains, is too look for the actual number displayed on the bottle and to ignore whatever description they use.
I have seen some folk argue that 0.5% ABV is still alcoholic. I would counter this by saying to compare it with some common foods and drinks which contain the same amount of alcohol or actually even more. I don’t think you would ever consider these alcoholic at all.
You can read my full article on the alcohol in common foods here, but the table below is a good illustration. As you will see, juices like apple and orange can have even more alcohol and the did you know bread contained alcohol at all?
| Type of food | Highest alcohol content (ABV) in percent % |
| Alcohol free drink | 0.05% |
| Non alcoholic drink | 0.5% |
| Grape juice (red) | 0.86% |
| Apple juice | 0.66% |
| Orange juice | 0.73% |
| White wine vinegar | 2.64% |
| Wheat roll | 0.14% |
| Burger roll | 1.28% |
| Rye Bread | 0.2% |
| Sweet milk rolls | 1.21% |
| Banana | 0.2% |
| Ripe Banana | 0.4% |
| Ripe Pear | 0.04% |
| Kefir | 0.02% |
| Yogurt | 0.02% |
How much alcohol is in an alcohol free gin?
Alcohol free gin can have up to 0.05% alcohol by volume which then gets rounded down to 0.0%. It truly is alcohol free. Any tiny amount of alcohol is broken down by the body before it has any effect at all.
We are talking the same alcohol as a yogurt and certainly less than bread.
Having the word “alcohol” in the description and having a bottle that looks like an alcoholic gin is confusing but you can not get drunk on alcohol free gin and you can drink as much as you want of it and drink or work safely.
