BTG

What BTG actually means

BTG stands for By the Glass. It is the wine program that sells individual pours out of bottles at the bar, instead of customers buying the whole bottle. Most BTG pours are 5 or 6 ounces, which gives a 750mL bottle either 5 or 4 pours per bottle depending on the spec.

BTG is where the margin math on wine gets interesting and where most operators lose money without realizing it.

How it is used on the floor

A customer orders “a glass of the Cabernet.” Bartender pulls the bottle, pours 5 or 6 oz, marks the pour, and returns the bottle to the shelf. That bottle might last 3 days, a week, or a shift depending on velocity. Any time it spends open is time the wine is oxidizing and losing quality.

Most bars carry 8 to 16 BTG wines. A fine dining program might carry 25 or more. The list changes seasonally and by category: a few whites, a few reds, a rosé, a sparkling, maybe a dessert wine.

The BTG math

BTG Pour Cost % = (Bottle Cost / Pours per bottle) / Menu Price per glass

Example: a bottle of Cabernet costs the bar $12. Spec is 5 oz pours, which gives 5 pours per 750mL bottle. Per-pour cost is $12 / 5 = $2.40. Menu price is $12 per glass. Pour cost is $2.40 / $12 = 20 percent.

That is a healthy BTG pour cost. Fine dining often runs higher (25 to 35 percent) because the bottles cost more and the menu prices cannot scale linearly.

The hidden cost of BTG

The biggest problem with BTG is spoilage. An opened bottle of red wine is good for 2 to 3 days. White wine maybe 3 to 5. Any bottle that does not finish in that window loses quality, and eventually gets dumped. That is pure shrinkage.

Rule of thumb: a BTG bottle needs to sell at least 3 pours a day to stay fresh. If a wine sits open for a week, the remaining pours are stale and customers notice. Tracking BTG velocity is the single most important habit in wine program management.

Preservation systems

Coravin, Winekeeper, and nitrogen-based systems extend open bottle life dramatically. Coravin can keep a bottle fresh for weeks. These systems cost money up front but save thousands in spoilage for bars with slow-moving premium BTG wines.

Common mistakes

Offering too many BTG options so each one sells too slowly. Pouring heavy on BTG (a 6 oz pour instead of 5 costs 20 percent more per pour). Not tracking BTG velocity per wine. Refusing to invest in preservation for premium BTG bottles.

How PourIQ handles it

PourIQ tracks BTG pours per bottle, flags open bottles approaching their spoilage window, and calculates true BTG pour cost including expected waste. You see which wines are moving, which are dying, and which preservation investments would pay back fastest.