Avoiding the excess calories in your favorite cocktails

Especially considering the holiday spirit, frivolity and cocktails are not uncommon among large gatherings of friends and family. But if you're a calorie counter, or on a strict diet, you may want to educate yourself on the potency of alcohol before indulging in the fun.

For starters, the stronger the proof the more caloric content it has. An example includes 80-proof vodka which has 64 calories per ounce. Compare that with 82 per ounce found in 100-proof vodka. Add in heavy mixers and you could end up with a latte-sized cocktail.

The original article has a list of suggestions for cutting calories on your alcoholic beverages. These include water and club soda as mixers, which provide virtually no collateral damage. Other low-cal mixers could be light lemonade, sugar-free syrups, or light cranberry juice (which goes great with vodka, by the way). Of course cutting out mixers altogether saves all the hassle of added calories. Read on for more tips concerning health-conscious cocktails.