Cocktails of the Unexpected!

The fact that there are as many as 50 Cocktail Bars in Timeout’s guide to the best is evidence of the popularity of what was once thought of as a holiday treat! Cocktails are now more of a regular feature in the drinking person’s routine whether sampling a sweet treat after a day’s shopping or sticking to a James Bond supercool martini on a night out. The air of sophistication such drinks may give off is also accompanied with a difficulty in working out when it may be safe to drive due to the massive variance in ingredients and alcohol content contained in each drink.

The list below gives you an idea of the likely measures in the average cocktail of your choice but is by no means a definitive guide.

As you can see from the above ingredients, there is often more than 1 part of alcohol used to make the most common cocktails. Unlike wine and beer, spirits contain a much higher percentage of ABV (alcohol by volume).

• 1 unit equates to 25ml of 40% ABV whiskey.
• Your body takes around 1 hour to process 1 unit of alcohol, but it ultimately depends on:
  • Your sex (male/female)
  • Your height/weight
  • How much you have had to eat
  • How long you have been drinking
  • Your health issues
  • Your metabolism rate
  • If the strength of the spirit in your cocktail is 40% ABV that is 40% pure alcohol.

• Don’t be afraid to ask a member of staff the amount of alcohol used to make the cocktail.
• Be aware that many bars now serve spirits in 35ml or 50 ml measurements rather than 25ml. If planning to drive after drinking a cocktail it will be no defence if you make an assumption that you were drinking single measures when you were drinking doubles.

If you were under the misapprehension that you were partaking in a mocktail (alcohol free drink) rather than cocktail, then if you are unfortunate enough to drive and be found to be over the drink drive limit, it is possible that you will have a special reason that could enable you to receive penalty points in place of the usual mandatory ban for drink driving.

The special reason that you would be putting forward is that your drinks were spiked so that you were unaware of being over the limit at the time of the alleged offence. In order to prove that this situation applied to your case, the test to be applied by the Court is:-

• The offender must not have known at the time that they had consumed more alcohol than they intended;
• They must not have known or ought to have known that when they were driving they were over the prescribed limit, and
• The amount of laced drink must be the sole cause of the excess over the prescribed limit.