How Many Bottles Are In A Barrel Of Whiskey? [Answered]

by Dane Wilson | Last Updated: August 23, 2022

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Whether you are just curious, or you are wanting to buy yourself a barrel of whiskey – you will ideally want to know how many bottle of bourbon in a barrell. While it may seem extreme to buy your very own barrel, it is surprisingly a lot more common than you think. The barrels may have an estimation of how much liquid there is inside of them, but roughly converting this into how many bottles there are is a lot easier to understand at a glance.

Table of Contents

• Whiskey Barrels
  • How Many Bottle of Bourbon in a Barrel
    • Is This Entirely Accurate?
• Bottle Sizes And Barrel Sizes
  • Bottle Sizes
  • Barrel Sizes
• Is Buying A Barrel Worth It?
• FAQs On How Many Bottles of Bourbon in a Barrel

Whiskey Barrels

You will typically have the choice between buying a bourbon barrel or oak barrels, and while these are very similar in volume, they will vary a lot in price. The average whiskey barrel in America will hold a liquid content of 200 liters. This is a whole barrel and is standard in America, although you can also find places that sell barrels of different sizes such as the Hogshead cask, which holds 250 liters. Other barrel sizes will often be percentages of an entire barrel such as being able to buy a quarter barrel, which contains a quarter of the volume of a standard barrel.

How Many Bottle of Bourbon in a Barrel

While the answer to this question has a lot of variables, it can be answered very simply by using some easy mathematics. The main variables we need to pay attention to are the size of the barrel and the size of your bottle. While your definition of a bottle may be a 500ml bottle, there are many other bottle sizes that are more popular or may be more convenient to measure in.

Assuming that you are measuring the most common barrel size and the most common bottle size, the equation is going to be the volume of the barrel divided by the volume of the bottle. The majority of bottles are measured in milliliters while the barrels are measured in liters, so converting these measurements is necessary.

To save you all the math of converting it, the final equation based on these barrel and bottle sizes is going to be 200000 milliliters divided by 750 milliliters. This gives you a final answer of the 200-liter barrel being capable of containing 266 750ml bottles of whiskey.

Is This Entirely Accurate?

While you would hope that the complexity of this question would end with a simple answer, unfortunately, that is not how it works. Theoretically, we have reached a final answer as to how many bottle of bourbon in a barrel. The key word is ‘can’ as the amount of whiskey the barrel will realistically hold is going to be less than what it is capable of containing.

While being aged in a barrel, whiskey is very prone to evaporating. The whiskey is also very capable of soaking into the barrel and can sometimes stay soaked in the barrel instead of joining the rest of the liquid. So while a barrel is capable of holding 266 bottles of whiskey, when you pour it all out into these bottles, there may be a few bottles less than anticipated.

Alongside this, the answer to the equation also has a recurring decimal place. The accurate answer is 266.66 recurring, which means you will have roughly half of a bottle left over, assuming that none of the whiskey has evaporated or soaked into the barrel.

Bottle Sizes And Barrel Sizes

As mentioned, how many bottle of bourbon in a barrel will all depend on the size of the barrel and the size of the bottles you are trying to fill. For your convenience, I will list the most common volumes held by both barrels and bottles. The whole barrel will have a certain volume however as stated above, this does not mean that is how much whiskey will be in it due to evaporation.

Bottle Sizes

• 50 mL
• 100 mL
• 200 mL
• 375 mL
• 750 mL
• 1 L
• 1.75 L

Barrel Sizes

• American Standard Barrel – 200 L
• Quarter Cask – 50 L
• Hogshead Cask – 250 L
• Barrique Cask – 300 L
• Puncheon Cask – 500 L
• Butt Cask – 500 L
• Port Pipe Cask – 650 L
• Madeira Drum – 650 L

Your typical bourbon barrel in America is going to be 200 L although depending on where you buy the barrel from, this size can change. If you ask what barrels they sell, you can easily find out their volume. One barrel is going to have a lot of whiskey in it, provided it isn’t a quarter cask, so you will need a lot of bottles to fill. The most common bottle size at a liquor store is the 750 mL bottle, although a lot of shops will sell bourbon samples in smaller 50 mL bottles for those that do not want to buy loads of whiskey in case they do not like it.

If you want to buy Jim Beam bourbon, there will be plenty of size options for both barrels and bottles as any bourbon enthusiasts will know, as Jim Beam is incredibly popular. A bourbon distillery will use the typical barrel size unless it is something special such as premium bourbon.

Is Buying A Barrel Worth It?

While a barrel yields less than the volume it is capable of holding, the amount of whiskey you get in a barrel is arguably cheaper than buying the same amount in bottles. A single barrel of whiskey is on average going to be cheaper than buying the same volume of whiskey from a liquor store.

Just remember, the barrel will not be full as you must account for the angel’s share, cask strength, and any spillage that happens during the bottling process.

FAQs On How Many Bottles of Bourbon in a Barrel