Which statement correctly reflects what counts as roughly the same amount of pure alcohol?

Why B is correct

The standard-drink concept exists because servings differ dramatically in volume while carrying nearly identical amounts of pure alcohol. A regular beer, a standard pour of wine and a shot of spirits were chosen as equivalents deliberately, so that counting drinks means the same thing no matter who is doing the counting. Misunderstanding this leads to one particular and common error: treating beer as the safe option because it arrives in the largest glass, when glass size is not the variable that tracks alcohol content.

Why the other options are wrong

A. A bottle of beer contains half the alcohol found in any other drink

Volume of the glass measures nothing about alcohol content. Serving sizes across beer, wine and spirits were set so that each delivers a comparable amount of pure alcohol.

C. Spirits always contain far more alcohol per serving than beer can

Spirits are poured in far smaller measures precisely because they are stronger per ounce. Comparing concentration across wildly different glass sizes is how somebody concludes that beer is harmless and a shot is ruinous, when in alcohol content the two were built to match each other.

D. Wine barely counts, because it is mostly water

Dismissing wine because it looks watery ignores what is actually in it. Pour for pour, wine contributes to blood alcohol like anything else on the table.

On the road

Three rounds are bought over an evening: beer for one person, wine for another, spirits for a third. Each had the same count of standard drinks, and none of them can tell from that alone what their blood alcohol is now. The round contained the same alcohol whoever ordered it; only the glass differed. Anyone trying to work out who came off safest has misread the question entirely.

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