Bar and beverage calculator

For 100 guests over four hours at a full bar where people pour for themselves, the calculator lands on about 325 drinks: roughly 7 cases of beer, 23 bottles of wine, 3 handles of liquor, 14 liters of mixers, and 9 bags of ice. Change the bar type to beer and wine only and the same crowd needs about 10 cases and 30 bottles instead. Those are starting points, and if you know your crowd leans one way you can set the beer, wine, and liquor percentages yourself and the list follows.

Set the drinking-age count and the alcohol is sized for those guests only. Everyone else still counts for water, ice, cups, and soft drinks, so the non-alcoholic side goes up rather than down. This matters most at quinceañeras, graduations, and family parties, where sizing a bar by total headcount produces a wildly overstuffed shopping list. A two hundred guest quinceañera with sixty adults needs a fraction of the wine and several times the soda.

The first hour is counted heavier than the rest because guests arrive thirsty and social, and the hours after settle down. Flattening that curve is what produces a bar that runs dry at hour two. If your crowd genuinely drinks less, the light setting is the honest choice rather than shaving the guest count.

A half barrel is 15.5 gallons, which is 165 twelve ounce pours. A slim quarter barrel is half that, about 82 pours. Those are the two sizes worth planning around here, and asking for a slim quarter rather than just a quarter keeps you from getting the squat pony keg that will not fit where you planned. A 750 ml bottle of wine pours five standard glasses, and a 1.75 liter handle makes about 39 cocktails at a measured pour. Kegs only start beating cans on price once you are clearly past a single barrel, and somebody has to tap and ice them. That is why the calculator recommends cases first and only shows a keg option, in whole kegs, once your beer quantity actually fills one.

Nobody free-pouring at a party measures an ounce and a half, and that is just as true of the friend who volunteered to work the bar as it is of a guest helping themselves. The calculator adds about fifteen percent to spirits for casual pouring, which is the most reliable reason a DIY bar runs short. Choose the measured setting only when someone is actually pouring to a jigger. A professional bartender changes the consumption and the queue at the same time, which is usually why hosts hire one for the second event rather than the first.

A toast is sized on your whole headcount, not on the adult count, because everybody raises a glass. Plan a 750 ml bottle for every eight guests at a two to three ounce pour, and pour sparkling cider for guests under 21 and anyone who is not drinking. Tick the toast box and the calculator takes those pours back out of the first hour rather than stacking them on top, because the guest holding a flute is not also holding the drink they would have had. Time of day matters for the same kind of reason: a brunch or a daytime shower leaves the beer largely untouched and pours mimosas and wine instead, so the daytime setting starts the split there.

Guests drinking in front of colleagues or donors do not drink like a backyard party, so those two event types start on the light curve. It is only a starting point. If you know your crowd, set how the crowd drinks yourself and the calculator leaves it exactly where you put it.

Ice is the item people forget and the one you cannot improvise at the venue. Outdoors in San Antonio heat the requirement rises sharply, for the drinks and for keeping everything else cold. Water gets planned for every guest regardless of what else is being poured, and roughly a quarter of your guests will want a real non-alcoholic option rather than a cup of tap water. Guests who are not drinking alcohol at all, which at a quinceañera is most of the room, are planned at half again that rate, because they are working the soft drinks all night rather than alternating. You will not find trash bags or an exact lime count here on purpose: bags are a venue supply, and garnish depends on what you pour, so the list gives you the rule of thumb that one lime or lemon yields about six wedges and leaves the rest to the drinks you are actually making. Everything else is rounded to the package a store actually sells, because a serving count is no use in an aisle: soda and water by the case, ice by the twenty pound bag, and cups by the sleeve in both sizes, nine ounce for soft drinks and sixteen ounce for beer and mixed drinks.

Plenty of San Antonio venues let you bring your own alcohol and require a licensed bartender to serve it. Ask what the venue requires before you shop, because the answer changes whether you buy kegs or cases, whether you need a service bar, and who carries liability for the pour.