How to Price a Cocktail
Cocktail pricing is menu pricing with better margins and smaller units. The method: cost the whole build, divide by a target pour cost, then round like a bar.
Cost the whole build, not just the base spirit
A house margarita: 2 oz tequila ($24/750 ml = $0.94/oz → $1.89), 1 oz triple sec ($12/L = $0.36), 1 oz fresh lime ($0.35), 0.5 oz agave ($0.15), salt and lime wheel ($0.12). Build cost: $2.87. The modifiers nearly doubled the “just tequila” number — skipping them is the most common cocktail-costing error.
Divide by the target
Cocktails target 16–20% pour cost (see Pour Cost 101). At 18%: 2.87 ÷ 0.18 = $15.94 → $16. If your market caps margaritas at $13, that's still a 22% pour cost — fine — or re-spec the build (1.5 oz pour, house-made triple sec) back toward target.
Tier the targets
- Well drinks: 14–18% — volume pays
- Call/premium: 18–22% — the guest upgraded, don't punish them
- Signature list: 18–20% — your brand, your margin
- Zero-proof: price near the signature list; the costs are trivial and the seat is the same
Batching changes cost, so re-cost it
Batched builds pour faster and more consistently (a jigger's worth of accuracy is worth 1–2 points by itself), but batch dilution and prep labor change the per-drink cost. Cost the batch as a sub-recipe — total ingredients ÷ number of drinks it yields — and let the menu price rest on that.
In Freecost, a cocktail is just a recipe whose ingredients happen to be bottles — spec it once and the price of tequila keeps your margarita honest all year.