Until recently, people did not care much about consuming low calorie alcoholic drinks. Alcoholic drinks were considered non-fattening. The misconception still persists, however, with the passage of time more and more people have started to realize that alcohol is no exception from calorie rich diet. In fact, certain types of alcoholic drinks have a very high calorie count. With the improving realization of alcohol as a calorie rich diet, more and more people are now curious about low calorie alcoholic drinks.

In alcoholic drinks, the calorie count is directly proportional to the amount of alcohol. This makes comparison between drinks easier. The more the amount of alcohol content, the higher the calorie count. You can calculate the alcohol content of a drink from its percentage alcohol content by volume (also known as, ABV). The ABV value is mentioned on the bottle or container.

Lets take a bird’s-eye view of different drinks and see which ones are low calorie alcoholic drinks. Beer has a 0.05 -10% alcohol content, whereas wine has a 5-13%. Liquors and liqueurs are rich in calories (they range between 14-40% in alcohol content). In liqueurs, what really adds to the calorie count is the sugar along with the high alcohol ratio.

So what choices do you have when going for low calorie alcoholic drinks?

If you are a beer drinker, you have lite beer. In lite beer, you have a cut down of 40 calories per bottle. Drinks that contain “hard liquor” are a different deal. You might mistakenly think that gin is lowest in calories, but that is not really the case. The fact of the matter is, gin is as rich in calories as rum, whisky or tequila, provided they all have the same alcohol content. Last but not the least, you should avoid cocktails with multiple mixers. Also, opt out for drinks which have little to no sugar.

For the health conscious, low calorie alcoholic drinks are the sought-after diet. Even if you only go for low calorie alcoholic drinks, one last thing to keep in mind is that calories add up, and excess of everything is bad.