Pour cost

Pour cost is food cost for the bar. Divide the ex-tax cost of everything that goes into the glass — spirits, liqueurs, mixers, garnish — by the drink's ex-tax selling price, then multiply by 100. A cocktail built on 2.80 of liquid and served at 14 ex-tax pours at 20%. Cost it per millilitre from the bottle, never from the whole-bottle price.

Bars typically target 18 to 24% overall, with real spread by category: spirits and cocktails run lean, wine by the glass and draught beer sit higher. A well-run cocktail list lands around 20%. Drift above target usually means over-pouring rather than theft — a free-poured jigger that's consistently heavy quietly walks the whole bar's cost upward.

The classic mistake is costing from the bottle instead of the exact pour: a 4 cl measure out of a 70 cl bottle is one-seventeenth of the cost, not a round guess. Forgetting garnish, ice dilution and spill loss also understates the true pour cost.