Okay, so I got curious about this whole “shot” thing a while back. You hear it all the time, right? “Take a shot,” “a shot of whiskey,” whatever. But I realized I didn’t actually know how much that was. Like, is it always the same?
My first step was just paying more attention when I was out. I started looking at the glasses bartenders were using. And right away, I noticed they weren’t all identical. Some looked taller, some wider. That just made me more confused, honestly.
Then I asked a couple of bartenders I know. One guy told me “it’s usually about an ounce and a half.” Another one, at a different place, said “we pour one ounce here.” So, already, different answers. It seemed like it wasn’t some super strict, official measurement everywhere.
My Own Measuring Experiment
This got me thinking, I needed to figure this out for myself. So, I went and bought a few different types of shot glasses. You know, the standard looking ones, some taller thin ones, even those little novelty ones. I just grabbed a variety.
Back home, I dug out my trusty kitchen measuring cup – the kind you use for baking, with ounce and milliliter markings. It’s not super scientific, but good enough for this little project.
I took each shot glass and carefully filled it with water right up to the brim. Then, I poured that water into the measuring cup. I did this for every single glass I bought.
What I Found Out
It turns out, there’s definitely a common range, even if the glasses look different. Here’s what I mostly found:
- A lot of standard shot glasses held about 1.5 fluid ounces. That’s roughly 44 milliliters if you’re using metric. This seemed to be the most common size I came across in my little test batch.
- Some were smaller, closer to 1 fluid ounce. That’s about 30 milliliters. These were often the slightly shorter, wider ones, or sometimes the ones used for specific layered shots maybe.
- I even had one that was clearly meant to be a double shot, holding almost 3 fluid ounces (around 88 ml).
So, while asking around gave me conflicting info, doing it myself showed me why. There isn’t just one single size! It really depends on the glass, the place, maybe even the country you’re in. I read somewhere that official sizes can vary legally from place to place too, but just measuring the actual glasses people use seemed more practical.
The key takeaway for me was this: most of the time, when someone says “a shot,” they probably mean somewhere between 1 and 1.5 fluid ounces. It’s not super precise, but that’s the ballpark. Good enough for understanding recipes or just knowing what you’re drinking!
