Alcohol and Your Diet

When I have a drink, I want one of 4 things:
- Whiskey and Coke
- Rum and Coke or a Mojito
- Good wine or Champagne (sparkling wine, whatever)
- Good beer (Heineken is not good beer. Negra Modelo and Delirium are.)

(Note: I'm going to use Calorie-Count.com for all my numbers)

Beer (~150)
We all know that beer is made of carbs and calories. But how many? Well, I don't have bottles handy at work, so looking online, my options are limited. Let's start with the lame, American standard: Budweiser. 145kcal for 12oz.
Blue Moon, an excellent beer that is apparently owned by Coors (?!?) is 171kcal per 12oz.
Peroni, a great, light Italian beer, sold by Miller, is 150kcal per 12oz.

Wine (~80)
For wine, they don't offer any specific brands, vinyards, or vintages. Fair enough. On average, we'll assume, a glass (3.5oz) will run you around 79kcal.

Liquor (~???)
Now, for those of you who like the harder drinks, or cocktails, let's look first at the alcohol content. Most standard alcohols are 80 proof, so 1 fl. oz. will cost you 64kcal.
Coca-Cola is 97kcal for 8oz. If you mix your drinks 2:1, that would include 4oz of alcohol, or 256kcal for a total of 353. Three drinks is half of the daily recommended intake for most people. I will grant that that's a fair bit stronger than most people go for, but it's my blog, my post, and my recipe. :)

(Every photo tells a story, but some need additional explanation)

What do you make of that? Speaking for myself, I can't believe how many calories are in liquor. It has no carbs, no fat, no sugar, no protein... what the heck? And as soon as I saw that number, it clicked. Calories are a measurement of energy. Energy is measured by combusting foods, basically. Or at least that was the original method. Slate has an interesting article on the subject. Suffice for our purposes to say that you can get SOME measurement of caloric content by burning something and calculating the energy it gives off.

I don't think you need to actually try it to know that alcohol burns a helluva lot better than coke. In fact, I would highly recommend AGAINST attmepting to set fire to liquor. Either way, it was kind of a 'duh' moment for me. Of course whisky is chock-full of calories.

The other thing I'm thinking is ... it's time to revise the diet. I think I'll allow myself 2 cocktails a week. (At least one of which should be before dance class!!)