How to Count Spirits Stock in Your Pub

Last updated: 26 June 2026

Most pub licensees think they’re counting spirits stock when they’re actually just guessing. You’re looking at a bottle of Jameson, estimating it’s three-quarters full, and writing down “0.75 bottles” on a spreadsheet—which tells you almost nothing about whether you’ve made money on that line. The number that actually matters is wet GP by line, not a single headline stock figure, and spirits hide losses in over-pouring (a free-poured 25ml is often 32–35ml), draught hides it in poor cellar temperature and bad line cleaning waste, and most stock ‘theft’ is actually measurement error and forgotten wastage.

If you’ve been running your pub without a proper spirits counting routine, you’re likely losing money every single week without realising it. A 1% stock loss on wet sales quietly costs a typical pub £3,000–£5,000 a year—and most of that loss is invisible because you’re not weighing your bottles or reconciling against till data.

This guide shows you how to count spirits stock the way it actually works: weigh open bottles, dip every cask and partial keg, and reconcile against till data the same day. I’ll walk you through the exact process I use at my own pub, the equipment you actually need, and how to spot the measurement errors that are silently eating your margins.

You’ll learn the step-by-step process, the common mistakes that wreck accuracy, and why your current spreadsheet is probably hiding losses instead of exposing them. Most importantly, you’ll understand why weekly counting beats monthly guesswork—and how a proper routine can claw back 1–2 gross profit points within a couple of months.

Why Standard Spirit Counts Don’t Work

The most effective way to count spirits stock is to weigh open bottles on calibrated scales, not estimate volume by eye. Every pub licensee I know started by eyeballing bottles—tilting them, holding them up to the light, writing down a rough percentage. It’s fast, it requires no equipment, and it’s almost completely wrong.

When I took over my pub, I was running stock on a tangle of spreadsheets and still losing track of partial kegs and spirit measures. I’d record a bottle as “60% full” one week, “50% full” the next, and have no idea whether that difference meant genuine stock movement or just inconsistent eyeballing. The real problem wasn’t the spreadsheet—it was that I had no baseline for accuracy.

A bottle of whiskey that looks half full to you might be 45% full to someone else. That 5% variance across 20 spirit lines becomes untrackable waste. You can’t manage what you can’t measure accurately, and eyeballing is not measurement. Most pub stocktakes fail because the person counting last month used different logic than the person counting this month.

The second reason standard counts fail is that they ignore the till. You’ve got a EPOS system recording every measure sold—25ml, 50ml, double measures, rounds—but you’re comparing that to a physical stock number that came from a guess. There’s no way to spot whether your till is recording correctly or whether your staff are over-pouring. Reconciliation reveals everything.

The Equipment You Actually Need

You don’t need a cellar packed with expensive kit. In fact, most of the equipment needed for accurate spirits counting costs less than a crate of lager.

Digital Scales

Buy a set of digital kitchen scales rated to 5kg minimum—something like Salter or Terraillon, nothing fancy. Cost: £15–25. They need to show weight to the nearest 1g. You’ll place each open bottle on the scales and record the weight. One set of scales works for your entire stocktake; you just move between bottles.

Density Conversion Chart

A bottle of whiskey weighs less than water because spirits are less dense. A litre of 40% ABV spirit weighs approximately 950g; water weighs 1000g. This matters because you need to convert weight back to actual volume. Download a simple density table for the ABV of your main spirits (40% whiskey, 37.5% gin, 40% vodka, etc.)—or use a calculator. The math is straightforward: divide bottle weight by the density factor for that spirit.

A Notebook or Counting Sheet

A printed template with columns for spirit name, bottle weight, calculated volume, till sales, and variance. Nothing complicated. Some licensees use spreadsheets; others use a simple paper sheet. What matters is that the format is identical every week—so you’re comparing apples to apples.

Your Till Records

Pull your EPOS data for the counting period (usually the past 7 days). Export measures by product line. You need to know exactly how many 25ml, 50ml, and other measures of each spirit were recorded as sold.

Do you need dedicated pub software? Not for spirits counting alone. What you do need is a system that doesn’t let you second-guess yourself or change how you count week to week. That’s where StockTap pub stock app saves time—it locks your counting method so the data stays consistent and variance jumps out visibly. But the foundation is always the scales and the till reconciliation, not the software.

Step-by-Step: How to Count Spirits Accurately

1. Schedule Your Count at a Consistent Time

Count at the same time every week—ideally Monday morning before the bar stocks up for the week, or Tuesday if you’re busier on Mondays. Consistency matters because your till data for that period needs to match your physical count period. If you count Tuesday morning, use till data from Tuesday last week through Monday this week.

2. List Every Open Spirit Bottle

Walk the bar and back bar. Write down every spirit bottle that has been opened—even if it’s nearly empty. Include optics, pourers, and spirit guns (if you use them). A bottle still sealed doesn’t count toward variance; opened bottles do.

3. Weigh Each Bottle

Place each bottle on your digital scales. Record the weight to the nearest gram. Do not estimate. Do not tilt or guess. Write it down. Weighing open spirit bottles is non-negotiable because weight is the only measurement that’s reproducible week to week.

4. Convert Weight to Volume

Use your density table. If a bottle of 40% whiskey weighs 500g and the density factor for 40% ABV is 0.950, divide: 500 ÷ 0.950 = 526ml. That’s your stock figure. Write it down.

5. Pull Till Data for That Period

Export from your EPOS the measures of that spirit recorded as sold in the past 7 days. If the till says you sold 15 × 25ml measures of that whiskey, that’s 375ml of recorded sales.

6. Calculate Variance

Physical stock + recorded sales = your theoretical opening stock from last week. If your physical stock is 526ml today, and you sold 375ml this week, your opening stock last week should have been 901ml. Compare that to what your count showed last week. If last week’s count was 900ml, your variance is 1ml—excellent. If it was 750ml, you have an 151ml gap, and something’s wrong (over-pouring, a forgotten waste pour, theft, or a measuring error from last week).

This reconciliation is where the truth lives. It’s also where most pubs find out they’ve been losing money silently.

Reconciling Stock to Till Data

Reconciliation is the critical step that most pubs skip—and it’s why they never catch losses. You must compare your physical count to your till records on the same day.

Here’s the workflow:

• Count spirits physically (weigh bottles)
• Export till data for the same 7-day period
• Calculate what you should have left (opening stock – sales + deliveries)
• Compare to your actual physical count
• Investigate any variance larger than 5% per line

Variance under 5% is normal (measurement tolerance, minor pouring inconsistency, rounding). Variance over 10% on a single line means over-pouring, a staff member free-pouring instead of using the optic, or an unmeasured waste pour. Variance trending upward week-on-week means your pouring standards are drifting.

The secret that changes everything is reconciling the same day. If you count on Monday and pull till data on Friday, your memory’s already fuzzy about whether that gin variance happened early in the week or if something else explains it. Same-day reconciliation means you can ask your staff immediately: “Why did we record 200ml of Tanqueray sold but we only lost 180ml of stock?” Sometimes there’s a good answer. Sometimes there isn’t.

At my own pub I was running stock on a tangle of spreadsheets and still losing track of partial kegs and spirit measures. I built a simple count routine around a set of scales and reconciliation the same day, and the weekly variance went from guesswork to a number I could trust within a fortnight.

Weekly vs. Monthly Counting

Most breweries and pubcos push monthly stocktakes because they’re easier to schedule and fit into their accounting cycle. But monthly counting is worse than useless—it hides the problems you need to fix.

A monthly count tells you your net variance for 30 days. If you’re over-pouring by 10ml per service and you’ve got 60 services a month, you’re 600ml down. But by the time you see that number, the pouring standard has drifted for a month, and you’ve already lost the money. You can’t fix a pouring problem you didn’t know existed until it cost you £300+.

Weekly counting does four things monthly counting can’t:

• Spots trends immediately: If variance goes from 2% to 5% to 8% over three weeks, your free-pouring is drifting. You can correct it in week four.
• Catches staffing problems: If variance spiked the week a new bartender started, you know they need optic training.
• Reveals theft or waste faster: A sudden jump in variance points to a specific week and specific staff, not a blur of 30 days.
• Keeps margins tight: Most pubs that move from monthly to weekly counting claw back 1–2 gross profit points within a couple of months. That’s real money.

I know weekly sounds like more work. The first three weeks it is. By week four, it’s 20 minutes—and you’re no longer guessing whether you made money on spirits.

Common Mistakes That Kill Accuracy

Mistake 1: Forgetting to Tare the Scales

You’ve got a bottle of Bacardi on the scales. The scale reads 650g. That’s the weight of the bottle and the glass. You need to subtract the empty bottle weight. Either weigh the empty bottle separately and subtract it, or zero the scales with the empty bottle on first, then add the spirit. Most people don’t do this and get wildly inaccurate readings.

Mistake 2: Mixing Up Bottle Sizes

A 70cl bottle of whiskey and a 1-litre bottle of whiskey won’t weigh the same even if they’re both “full.” You need to record the bottle size along with the weight, or you’ll get confused when comparing week to week. If you’re counting 70cl bottles, be consistent.

Mistake 3: Ignoring Optics and Speed Pourers

An optic measure holds 25ml (in most UK pubs). But if it’s clogged, or the nozzle has widened, it’s pouring 28ml. Speed pourers are even worse—they’re gravity-fed and highly inconsistent. Weigh your optics and pourers themselves. If a fresh optic gives 25ml but yours is now giving 30ml, that’s your over-pouring problem right there.

Mistake 4: Counting Sealed Stock

Don’t count unopened bottles in your spirits stock variance. Sealed bottles aren’t losing money; open bottles are. Your count should only include bottles currently being served from the bar or back bar. Sealed stock sits in your cellar and belongs in a separate record.

Mistake 5: Not Accounting for Deliveries and Waste

If a new crate of Absolut arrived during your counting week, that changes the math. Your opening stock plus deliveries minus sales should equal your closing stock. If you forget to record a delivery, your variance will be a complete fantasy. Same with waste pours—if a staff member correctly poured away a bottle that was off, that should be logged as waste, not variance.

Mistake 6: Changing Your Method

The worst mistake is deciding halfway through that you’ll count differently. Maybe you switch from weighing to eyeballing one week, or you forget to tare the scales for half the bottles. That week becomes useless for comparison, and you lose sight of your trend. Pick a method and stick to it exactly every week. Consistency beats perfection.