What's in a unit? Alcohol minimum pricing

Sir Liam Donaldson proposed that the minimum price for a unit of alcohol should be 50p per unit to curb binge drinking. For example, a 13% bottle of wine containing nine units of alcohol could not be sold for less than £4.50. Cheap supermarket promotions on bulk quantities of alcohol would also get pricier – long gone would be the days of the £10 crate of beer.

Happy hours would also become slightly less cheerful. Minimum pricing could bring an end to some drinks promotions in pubs and bars. For instance, a pint of lager with an alcohol content of 5% contains nearly 3 alcohol units, so with a minimum pricing of 50p per unit it couldn’t be sold for less than £1.50. 

What exactly is a unit?

So with all this talk about alcohol units, what exactly are they? Unfortunately it's not as simple as one drink equalling one unit.  A unit is 10ml or 8g of pure alcohol. To put this into context, you would consume one unit of alcohol if you drank  a 25ml single measure of whisky (ABV 40%), or a third a pint of beer (ABV 5-6%) or half a standard (175ml) glass of red wine (ABV 12%).  

Many people don't have a realistic idea of how much they're drinking. In fact, Drinkaware's research shows that eight out of 10 people don't know the correct amount of units that are recommended in Government guidelines. It's recommended that men should not regularly drink more than 3-4 units a day and that women should not regularly exceed 2-3 units a day. 

You can use our interactive Drinks Calculator tool to work out whether you might be drinking above the Government guidelines and also get tips on cutting down your daily intake if the results take you by surprise.

So is minimum pricing far away?

Whether or not the Chief Medical Officer’s recommendations to put a minimum pricing of 50p on every unit of alcohol become reality remains to be seen. Gordon Brown’s immediate reaction to the proposal was that putting a minimum price on alcohol would bring additional burdens on moderate drinkers.

The minimum pricing headlines ensure that the debate around the UK’s alcohol culture continues to be in the spotlight. At Drinkaware, our sole aim is to provide people with the information to decide for themselves about what role alcohol plays in their lives. Whether it be helping consumers understand units or allowing them to keep track of their alcohol consumption, we will continue to provide all the facts. 

Page last updated by

Root User, 19 Apr 2010.

Page checked on

16 Mar 2009