The short version: a 1.5oz pour of dry gin at 40% ABV is about 98 calories, with zero sugar, zero carbohydrate and zero fat. Nothing else in the bottle is contributing. That means the only lever that changes the number is bottling strength, and it means most of what gets marketed as low-sugar gin is describing a property that every dry gin already has.
Where the calories actually come from
Ethanol carries 7 calories per gram, which puts it closer to fat than to sugar. A 1.5oz pour is 44.36 millilitres, and ethanol has a density of 0.789 grams per millilitre, so a 40% gin delivers about 14 grams of ethanol per serving. Fourteen grams at 7 calories each is 98 calories.
That is the whole calculation for a dry gin. There is no second term. Which is why the calorie figure for any London Dry can be worked out from the label alone, and why you should be suspicious of any brand claiming a nutritional edge over another at the same proof.
Every major gin, calculated from its ABV
Sorted lightest first. All of these are dry styles with no added sugar, so the ranking is purely a proof ranking.
| Gin | Style | ABV | Sugar | Calories per 1.5oz |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gordon’s (Europe) | London Dry | 37.5% | 0g | 92 |
| Gordon’s (US) | London Dry | 40% | 0g | 98 |
| Beefeater | London Dry | 40% | 0g | 98 |
| Bombay Sapphire | London Dry | 40% | 0g | 98 |
| Plymouth | Plymouth | 41.2% | 0g | 101 |
| Hendrick’s | Contemporary | 41.4% | 0g | 101 |
| Sipsmith | London Dry | 41.6% | 0g | 102 |
| Aviation | American Dry | 42% | 0g | 103 |
| Roku | Japanese Dry | 43% | 0g | 105 |
| Tanqueray | London Dry | 43.1% | 0g | 106 |
| Monkey 47 | Schwarzwald Dry | 47% | 0g | 115 |
The full spread from the lightest mainstream bottling to the heaviest is 23 calories, which is less than a third of what a single tonic adds. Ranked by chemistry rather than calories, the order shifts slightly; see the healthiest gin rankings for the congener and botanical view.
Two footnotes on that table. Navy strength gins sit at 57% ABV and come to about 140 calories per pour, so they are the real outlier if you find one. And Gordon’s is the clearest illustration of why market matters: the identical gin is 40% in the US and 37.5% across most of Europe, a six calorie difference in the same glass.
The styles that do carry sugar
Everything above is a dry gin. The moment you leave that category the picture changes, and this is where the “gin is low sugar” shorthand breaks down:
- Sloe gin is not really gin in the regulatory sense. It is a fruit liqueur built on a gin base, typically bottled around 26% ABV with a substantial sugar dose. Lower alcohol, considerably more sugar, and the two roughly cancel out on calories.
- Old Tom is the historic sweetened style. Sugar levels vary hugely between producers because there is no tight cap, so the label is the only guide.
- Pink gin and flavoured gins are the ones to watch, partly because they are frequently sold on a health-adjacent aesthetic. Many are bottled at 37.5%, which makes them look light, while carrying added sugar that a London Dry legally cannot.
If a gin tastes sweet, it is sweet. Dry gin does not taste sweet, and no amount of botanical roundness changes that. Plymouth is a good test case, because its root-heavy bill reads soft and full on the palate while containing no sugar at all.
What this means if you are counting
Three things follow from the arithmetic, in order of how much they actually matter:
- The mixer is the decision. Tonic adds roughly 80 calories and 20 grams of sugar to a drink whose spirit contributed 98 calories and no sugar. Switching to soda water is a bigger change than switching gin brands could ever be.
- Proof is the second decision. Choosing a 40% gin over a 47% one saves 17 calories a pour, and more to the point it means a bar measure delivers a smaller dose of the thing that is doing the damage.
- The brand is barely a decision at all. Between two dry gins at the same ABV there is no nutritional difference to find. Pick on taste.
Worth being clear about the framing, though. None of this makes gin good for you. Ethanol is the active ingredient and the health cost sits with the ethanol, not with the sugar you avoided. Sorting gins by calorie count tells you which one is marginally less taxing per pour; it tells you nothing about whether to have the third one. Volume is the variable that dominates every number on this page.
For the chemistry view rather than the calorie view, including congeners and the botanical compounds that make some gins headache-prone, see the healthiest gin rankings. For how gin compares against the other clean spirit, see gin vs vodka and the healthiest vodka list. And for where gin sits against every other category, there is the full hangover index.