REVEALED: The calories in your favourite festive tipples

Christmas isn’t the best time of year to watch your waistline.

But that’s not just because of the huge amount of calories in mince pies, pigs in blankets and tubs of chocolate and what you should look out for.

Hidden calories in some of your favorite Christmas drinks can also help you pile on the pounds this December.

Drinking one Baileys is the caloric equivalent of eating four slices of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, an analysis by MailOnline has found.

Meanwhile, a festive mulled wine is like eating a mince pie and a eggnog has more calories than Christmas pudding.

Here, MailOnline reveals how many calories are in your favorite festive drink.

Drinking a Baileys or Irish Cream liqueur is the caloric equivalent of eating four slices of Terry’s Chocolate Orange Milk

This website looked at the calorie content of seven alcoholic drinks that are popular around Christmas.

A 60ml glass of eggnog – which contains condensed milk, sugar, eggs and brandy – was the worst offender, with 335 calories in a portion, according to the BBC Good Food recipe.

That’s more calories than a portion of Tesco’s own Christmas pudding (301 cal).

As a guideline, men should not eat more than 2,500 calories per day. For women, it is recommended to stick to 2,000 or lower.

That means just two cups can account for a third of your daily calories.

Eggnog can also contain 43g of sugar, which is 20g more than the sugar in a Yule Log of Belgian chocolate at Tesco.

Eating too much sugar over time can lead to weight gain and tooth decay.

NHS guidelines set the maximum daily intake at 30 grams of free sugars per day.

However, these limits only apply to free sugars – the sugars added to products – and not to the sugars that occur naturally in milk, fruit and vegetables. Some of the sugar content of these festive cocktails will come from natural sources.

A white Russian cocktail, which contains vodka and cream, was the second most caloric, containing 246 calories, according to a BBC Good Food recipe.

A festive 125 ml glass of mulled wine has about 196 calories, according to a BBC Good Food recipe, which contains almost as many calories as a Mr Kipling mince pie (238 cal).

The traditional warming whiskey cocktail, Old Fashioned, contains 191 calories, according to an online recipe from BBC Good Food – that’s more calories than a serving of Pringles (160 calories).

According to alcohol consultancy Drinkaware, a standard 50ml glass of Baileys Irish cream contains around 153 calories.

A 125ml festive glass of mulled wine contains around 196 calories, which is almost the same as eating a mince pie

Mince pies contain around 230 calories, which is comparable to many festive cocktails

One of the lightest drinks is a small glass of prosecco, which contains about 108 calories

This is almost equivalent to eating four slices of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange (164 cal) and would take about 15 minutes of running to burn, the report says.

A small glass of prosecco contains about 108 calories, according to Drinkaware.

For comparison, three party chocolates contain 135 calories.

A Buck’s fizz, made with orange juice and champagne, can add about 102 calories. Those are the calories equivalent to eating two small pigs in blankets (103 cal).

But the BBC Good Food recipe also highlights that the festive cocktail contains just 9 grams of sugar, making it one of the ‘healthier’ cocktails on the Christmas menu.

Alcoholic drinks with an alcohol content of more than 1.2 percent are not legally required to display calorie information in Britain, making it even more difficult for people to keep track of what they drink.

But London-based nutritionist Kim Pearson said displaying the calories and sugar content on alcohol would help consumers become more aware of what they drink.

‘People tend to forget to take into account the calories and sugars they consume in drinks. It can add up quickly,” Ms Pearson said.

‘It doesn’t help that alcoholic beverage manufacturers are not required to include nutritional information on the packaging of their drinks.

‘This information should be made easily accessible to consumers, just as is the case with food and non-alcoholic drinks.

‘This would help consumers become more aware of the empty calories and excess sugar they consume in Christmas cocktails and alcoholic drinks.’

DO YOU DRINK TOO MUCH ALCOHOL? THE 10 QUESTIONS THAT REVEAL YOUR RISK

A screening tool commonly used by medical professionals is the AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Tests). The ten-question test was developed in collaboration with the World Health Organization and is considered the gold standard in determining whether someone has alcohol abuse problems.

The test is reproduced here with permission from WHO.

To complete it, answer each question and record the corresponding score.

YOUR SCORE:

0-7: You are within the reasonable drinking range and at low risk for alcohol-related problems.

More than 8: Indicate harmful or dangerous drinking.

8-15: Medium risk level. If you drink at your current level, you risk developing problems with your health and life in general, such as at work and in your relationships. Consider cutting back (see below for tips).

16-19: Higher risk of complications from alcohol. At this level it can be difficult to cut back on yourself because you may be dependent and therefore need professional help from your GP and/or a care provider.

20 and older: Possible dependency. Your drinking is already causing problems, and you could very well be dependent. You should definitely consider quitting gradually or at least reducing your alcohol consumption. You should seek professional help to determine your level of dependence and the safest way to quit alcohol.

Severe dependence may require medically supervised withdrawal or detox in a hospital or specialized clinic. This is due to the likelihood that severe alcohol withdrawal symptoms will occur during the first 48 hours, requiring specialist treatment.