It is the first question anyone asks when comparing two wholesale quotes: how many drinks do I actually get out of this bottle? The answer is not printed on the label, because the label cannot know the one thing that decides it — the pump you screw into the top.
The short answer
We supply two Toschi portion pumps, and they are not interchangeable:
- Toschi Syrup Pump 31ml — a 1L bottle gives 32 full presses
- Toschi Syrup Pump 38ml — a 1L bottle gives 26 full presses
If your house recipe is one full press per drink, that is 32 or 26 drinks per bottle. Nothing about the flavour changes that number — only the pump does.
Drinks per bottle, by pump
| Bottle | 31ml pump | 38ml pump |
|---|---|---|
| 1L syrup | 32 presses | 26 presses |
| 2L sauce | 64 presses | 52 presses |
| Half-press dosing, 1L | 64 drinks | 52 drinks |
Thick sauces and toppings are usually poured or spooned rather than pumped, so treat the sauce row as a guide only — check that a pump moves your particular sauce before standardising on it.
Why the recipe you found online probably does not apply to you
Most café recipes written in English come out of the United States and Europe, where the common bar pump delivers a much smaller shot than either of ours. That is why so many recipes casually say "three pumps of vanilla".
Three presses of a 31ml Toschi pump is 93ml of syrup in a single cup. That is not a flavoured latte. That is a syrup drink with some coffee in it — and at 87g of sugar per 100ml on most Toschi syrups, it is a very sweet one.
Before you copy a pump count from anywhere, find out what pump the recipe assumed. If you cannot find out, ignore the pump count entirely and work in millilitres.
How to measure the pump you already own
Do not trust the number on the box, including ours. Pumps wear, and a partially depressed press is not a full dose.
- Fit the pump to a full bottle and prime it until syrup runs cleanly.
- Press it ten times, fully, into a measuring jug.
- Divide the volume by ten.
That figure — not the packaging — is your dose. Write it on the recipe card.
Turning that into cost per cup
Once you know presses per bottle, syrup cost per drink is simple division:
Delivered bottle price ÷ presses per bottle = syrup cost per drink.
A 1L bottle on a 31ml pump divides by 32. The same bottle on a 38ml pump divides by 26 — which makes every drink roughly 23% more expensive in syrup terms, for a difference most customers will not notice. If you are running tight on margin, that single choice is worth checking before you go looking for a cheaper supplier.
Why free-pouring breaks all of this
None of the above survives free-pouring. Without a fixed dose you cannot forecast how long a bottle lasts, you cannot reconcile stock against sales, and the same drink tastes different depending on who is on bar and how busy they are. Sweetness also tends to creep upward through a shift, because pouring generously is faster than pouring accurately.
A portion pump is the cheapest consistency control in the building.
Related guides
- Syrup, Barista Sauce or Topping? Which one goes in which drink
- Why your iced drinks taste weaker than the hot version
- Toschi FAQ: allergens, sugar, origin and what the manufacturer does not publish
Browse the Toschi 1L syrup range or the Catcher Gourmet 750ml syrups.