We’ve all been there, standing in the supermarket looking at the growing wall of pre canned drinks. Fancy a rum and coke? Why bother mixing it yourself when someone else has already done it for you?
But what price are you actually paying for that convenience? I’ve always wondered, so I decided to find out.
I started with a fairly popular one: Jack Daniel’s and Coca Cola. What would it actually cost to buy it canned versus mixing the equivalent drink myself (oh, the hardship, I hear you say)?
At my local Tesco you can currently pick up a 70cl bottle of Jack Daniel’s for £24.50, or £19 with a Clubcard. That Clubcard saving is a slightly questionable “genuine saving” in my view, and if you want to know why, I’ve written a whole article about supermarket membership pricing and the Tesco Clubcard.
As for the can, a 330ml can of Jack Daniel’s and Coke, 5% alcohol, currently costs £2.50, or £2.00 with a Clubcard. And a bottle of Coca Cola comes in at £2.25 for 1.75 litres. No Clubcard price on that one, but Tesco say it is Aldi price matched.
Now for the maths. The can contains 11% Jack Daniel’s, which works out at 36.3ml, a slightly strange amount that sits somewhere between a UK single and double.
To keep this a fair comparison, I’ve priced the homemade version using the Clubcard price throughout, since that’s the price the can itself is being compared against.
| Item | Amount | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Coca Cola | 293.7ml | 38p |
| Jack Daniel’s | 36.3ml | 99p |
| Homemade total | 330ml | £1.37 |
| Canned (Clubcard price) | 330ml | £2.00 |
So the canned version costs 63p more than mixing it yourself, a premium of around 46%.
I picked this one deliberately because it makes for a genuinely clean comparison. You know exactly what alcohol and what mixer has gone into it. That isn’t always the case with pre mixed cans, some of the own brand versions don’t clearly state what whisky or what cola has actually been used, which makes a like for like comparison much harder.
What the 63p doesn’t capture, of course, is everything else you’re paying for: it’s already chilled, it’s already portioned, and you’re not left with three quarters of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s sitting in the cupboard for the next six months. That has a value too, I just can’t put a precise number on it the way I can with the drink itself.
So I suppose the real question is: what value do you put on the convenience of a ready made can?
If you enjoyed this kind of make it yourself versus buy it breakdown, I did something similar with my coffee cost calculator, and if Clubcard pricing is a subject that interests you, it’s worth reading Is the Tesco Clubcard Still Worth It?
For more on cutting through the noise of everyday spending, head over to the Spending Habits hub.