Last updated: November 2026
The conventional wisdom on hard seltzer is wrong. A can of it and a vodka soda are the same drink in different packaging, both carrying about 0.6 ounces of pure alcohol, and neither one clears 100 calories. The can travels better and the glass tastes like vodka, but the arithmetic doesn’t care which one you pick up.
We started with our own list instead of a chart. The Drink Finder on this site lists 101 cocktails right now. Eight of them list soda water in the build. Exactly one of those eight lands under 100 calories, and it’s the Vodka Soda at 78. That number isn’t a marketing figure. It’s what our pour produces when you run the math backward, and we publish the real number instead of the flattering one.
Quick Answer: A vodka and seltzer made with 1.5 ounces of 80-proof vodka, club soda, and a lime wedge comes to about 97 calories, all of it from the ethanol. A 12-ounce hard seltzer at 5% alcohol holds the same 0.6 ounces of ethanol, which is 98 calories of alcohol, so the can and the glass are one calorie apart. Pick a flavored seltzer with added sugar and the number climbs.
What Is a Vodka and Seltzer, Exactly?
It’s vodka, carbonated water, and ice. That’s the whole build. A lime wedge goes on top if you want one, and at roughly one calorie it doesn’t change the answer.
The drink is a highball, which in bar terms means a spirit plus a long mixer in a tall glass over ice. Nothing gets shaken and nothing gets muddled, so it goes together in a few seconds. That speed is why it shows up on so many trays on a Friday night in Prentice.
Everything that carries calories in the glass is ethanol. Plain vodka has no sugar and no carbohydrate left after distillation, and club soda is water with dissolved carbon dioxide and a trace of minerals. Two of the three ingredients are effectively free.
Why Do a Glass and a Can Count Almost the Same?
Because the alcohol is identical. That’s the part that surprises people, and it’s the reason a hard seltzer never feels like a lighter drink after the third one.
Start with the federal standard drink. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines one standard drink as 14 grams of pure alcohol, which is 0.6 fluid ounces of ethanol, and it lists a 12-ounce beer at 5% alcohol as one example of it. Ethanol runs 7 calories per gram. Multiply 14 by 7 and you get 98 calories.
Now run a vodka and seltzer through the same arithmetic. A 1.5-ounce pour of 80-proof vodka is 40% alcohol, so 1.5 times 0.40 equals 0.6 ounces of ethanol. Identical. The MedlinePlus calorie table published by the US National Library of Medicine lists that pour at 97 calories, one below the pure-arithmetic figure because of rounding at each step.
The glass and the can are the same dose of alcohol. Only the wrapper differs.
What a Vodka and Seltzer Is Not
Two different products share the word, and the mix-up is worth naming before it costs you a drink order.
Seltzer water is not hard seltzer. Seltzer water is plain carbonated water with zero calories, and it’s the mixer in a vodka and seltzer. A hard seltzer is a fermented or malt-based alcoholic drink sold in a can, usually somewhere between 4% and 5% alcohol. Same word, two different products, and one of them is the reason the other one has a calorie count.
Club soda is also not tonic. Club soda is carbonated water with mineral salts added, and it carries nothing. Tonic water is sweetened with sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, and that is why a vodka tonic runs 189 calories in the same MedlinePlus table against 97 for the soda version. The mixer alone accounts for the extra 92.
Where the Canned Numbers Come From
A 12-ounce can at 5% alcohol holds 0.6 ounces of ethanol, the same ethanol load as the shot in your glass, which is 98 calories before anything else enters the picture. Add a gram or two of sugar for flavor and the total creeps to about 100, which is where the three-digit number on the side of the can comes from.
The federal food composition database treats the category more broadly than the shelf does. Its generic entry for hard seltzer, published by USDA FoodData Central, lists 24 calories and 3.2 grams of alcohol per 100 grams. Scale that to a 12-ounce can and you get about 86 calories and 11.5 grams of ethanol, which is a weaker pour than most cans sold today. Read the label on the can in your hand rather than trusting a category average.
Why the Federal Chart Lists Seltzer at 8 to 10 Ounces
Here’s the detail nobody quotes. The NIAAA standard drink chart doesn’t put flavored malt beverages at 12 ounces. It puts them at 8 to 10 ounces and labels them about 7% alcohol, a stronger mix than the 5% cans on the shelf. A 12-ounce can at 5% holds 0.6 ounces of ethanol, dead on one standard drink. A 5% can and a 1.5-ounce pour land on the same number by coincidence, not by design, and that coincidence is worth knowing when you’re counting.
How Do You Count the Calories in Your Own Pour?
Four steps, no app, and the only number that moves is the one the bartender controls.
- Get the volume of spirit in ounces. A standard jigger is 1.5 ounces. Our house pour on the vodka soda is shorter, about 1.2 ounces.
- Multiply by the ABV as a decimal. 1.5 ounces times 0.40 equals 0.6 ounces of ethanol for 80-proof vodka.
- Multiply the ethanol ounces by 163. That is the calorie content of one fluid ounce of pure ethanol, and 0.6 times 163 comes to 98.
- Add the mixer. Club soda, seltzer, and a lime wedge add about one calorie between them. Anything with sugar adds 4 calories per gram on top.
Worked Example: A Double
Ask for a double and the step that changed is step one. Three ounces of 80-proof vodka is 1.2 ounces of ethanol, which is 196 calories before the soda water pours in. The mixer still contributes nothing.
What the Mixer Does to the Total
This is where a light drink stops being light. Swap club soda for regular tonic and a 7-ounce vodka tonic reaches 189 calories. Swap it for cranberry juice cocktail and a 4-ounce pour of juice adds about 55 calories, taking the drink to about 150.
The One Mixer That Changes Everything
Diet tonic. It’s sweetened without sugar, so a vodka and diet tonic lands back near 97 calories. The same holds for diet ginger ale and for soda water with a squeeze of lime. Our guide to lower-calorie spirit options walks through the rest of the rail if vodka isn’t your spirit.
What Do We Actually Pour at 1117 Railroad Ave?
The Drink Finder entry for the Ripsaw Vodka Soda reads 78 calories, and the difference between that and the 97 above is the pour, not the recipe. Seventy-eight calories of ethanol works out to about 0.48 ounces of pure alcohol, which is roughly 1.2 ounces of 80-proof vodka. It’s a shorter pour than the federal standard, and we’d rather a regular know exactly what’s in front of them.
We built the Vodka Soda to be ordered fast and repeated. It’s a well drink, meaning it needs no shaking and no measuring beyond the shot, and it comes together in a highball glass with ice, soda, and a lime. The build uses Tito’s by default, and we’ll pour the same drink with gin, rum, or whiskey if you ask.
What people rarely work out is that the guest ordering a vodka and seltzer and the guest ordering a canned seltzer are drinking the same load of alcohol. Our breakdown of the vodka soda pour covers the 19-calorie gap between the standard measure and ours. The full alcoholic beverage calorie table lists beer, wine, and liqueurs if you want to compare across the whole menu.
We’re open Monday and Thursday through Sunday from 2 PM to close, closed Tuesday and Wednesday, at 1117 Railroad Ave in Prentice. The phone number is (715) 428-2042. Pull up on the ATV or the sled and we’ll pour it the same way.
How Does a Vodka and Seltzer Compare to Beer and Wine?
A vodka and seltzer sits at the bottom of the table with light beer and just above a mimosa. The spread across a normal night is narrower than the menu makes it look.
| Drink | Serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| Vodka and seltzer, lime | 1.5 oz spirit plus soda | 97 |
| Hard seltzer can | 12 oz, 5% ABV | 98 |
| Light beer | 12 oz | 103 |
| White table wine | 5 oz | 121 |
| Vodka and tonic | 7 oz | 189 |
| Rum and Coke | 8 oz | 185 |
A light beer and a vodka and seltzer are six calories apart, and both sit within a rounding error of the same alcohol dose. A regular beer at 153 calories is the bigger jump, and a vodka tonic is nearly double the soda version. The pattern is simple enough to memorize. What matters here is the sugar in the mixer, and that’s the only thing that moves the number.
If you want to compare 100 drinks side by side, the Drink Finder tool sorts our list by ingredient, spirit, and calorie count. For the recipes themselves, our low-calorie cocktail guide builds 20 drinks that all land under 150.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many calories are in a vodka and seltzer?
About 97 calories for a 1.5-ounce pour of 80-proof vodka with club soda and a lime wedge. All of the calories come from the vodka. The soda water and the lime contribute roughly one calorie combined.
Is a hard seltzer lower in calories than a vodka soda?
No. A 12-ounce hard seltzer at 5% alcohol and a vodka soda built on a 1.5-ounce pour hold the same 0.6 ounces of ethanol, so both come in near 98 calories. The can may carry a gram or two of sugar, which adds a few calories.
How many calories are in a vodka and seltzer with a double pour?
About 196. Doubling the vodka doubles the only ingredient carrying calories, and the soda water stays at zero.
Does seltzer water have calories?
No. Plain seltzer water is carbonated water and nothing else, which is why it works as a zero-calorie mixer. Hard seltzer is a different product, sold in a can with alcohol in it, and that one runs about 100 calories per 12 ounces.
Why does the Ripsaw Vodka Soda list 78 calories instead of 97?
Because we pour about 1.2 ounces of vodka instead of the 1.5-ounce federal standard measure. The recipe hasn’t changed. The shorter pour is the whole difference, and we print it rather than quoting the figure for a pour we don’t use.
See also: our signature Wisconsin Old Fashioned
See also: ATV trails that lead right to Ripsaw Saloon
See also: our summer 2026 seasonal cocktail guide