Peach schnapps, apricot schnapps, butterscotch schnapps, peppermint schnapps. All of these alcoholic drinks are tasty - but are they low carb?

First off, schnapps are supposed to be distilled fruit. So just like you make a wine from grapes, you should make a peach schnapps by mashing up peaches, distilling the sugar in them into alcohol and you end up with a lightly flavored peach "brandy" in essence. There shouldn't be any sugar added in, or extra alcohol added in. You should get a gentle flavor with the alcohol. Kirschwasser is another example - that's cherry schnapps from Germany.

In modern times, many "peach schnapps" are peach flavor and sugar added to rum or vodka :) Because of this they are RARELY low carb.

Here's an example - this information came directly from the DeKuyper team in response to my request.

DeKuyper® Peachtree® Schnapps
Serving Size: 1.5 fl. oz. (note the larger size)
Calories: 100
Carbohydrates: 18 grams

Butterscotch schnapps -
serving size: 1oz
calories: 72
carbohydrates: 10.6g

Similarly, for peppermint schnapps -

Hiram Walker® peppermint schnapps
Serving size: 1 oz
Calories: 83
Carbohydrates: 7.4 grams

So none of these items are low carb by any stretch of the imagination. We're talking about tiny shots of alcohol, and they are loaded with sugar! You could drink an entire large glass of wine for only 4g of carbohydrates.

And not only do you have the instant hit of the sugar carbohydrates, but you have the added problem of the alcohol. Alcohol is FULL of calories. So when you ingest alcohol, your body burns that for fuel - and only then turns to fats or other items to keep the body running. So if you drank a lot of alcohol, even if you were eating "purely low carb", then the other low carb items you ate would get piled onto your body as fat reserves. Your body would get all the fuel it needed from the alcohol intake and not have a need to process the rest of the food you ingested.

So the key here is that alcohol is not a "free food". Low carb assumes you have a very low alcohol intake (like 1 drink a day maximum). If you have more than that, it will very definitely affect your weight loss plans.


If you have a particular schnapps you're interested in, let me know and I'll try to get its details for you.


Lisa Shea's Library of Low Carb Books