I gave up drinking 5 years ago. Just didn't want it in my life anymore. Started just feeling ick more often than not even with just a couple drinks. Just stopped feeling worth it. But I loved cocktails.
It's pricey, but they expose me to all the new non-alcohol things out there. It's great if you just want an easy way to get fun new things without thinking too hard about this category.
Also, our very own Justin Kan, is a founder of Woody's Wine (NA): https://woodys.wine
So many good NA beers now. Athletic, Guinness, Heineken, all play well here.
Still looking for a good fake bourbon. My favorite so far is Free Sprits https://drinkfreespirits.com/collections/non-alcoholic-spiri... Fair warning though. None of these fake alcohols drink well on their own. I don't think anyone has a bourbon anyone is going to like on the rocks or neat. But it does well in mocktails.
I highly recommend trying to make some homemade ginger beer. It’s super easy, takes just a few days to ferment, lots of recipes online. Much better than the stuff in the store which is filled with added sugar or artificial sweeteners. Plus you can brew with extra ginger if you like it strong. Whatever you do, don’t ferment it in glass bottles. Use 2 liter plastic soda bottles.
Perhaps you might enjoy making cocktail yourselves :D
There is /r/Mocktails, imbibe magazine has a alcohol free section with a lot of recipes, and there are books as well - I'd suggest good drinks by Julia Bainbridge and Zero by alinea group-.
My biggest pain point is that there is no high end past Zero. The Julia book is solid.
In actual cocktails, there are a handful of books that are _incredible_ and cater to high end cocktails. I have ~600 bottles at home (I know...) and I really appreciate those books. I'm willing to make cranberry tequila rosemary ice. Or clarify a punch.
Almost every mocktail resource is... quite frankly... too simple. "Add lemon to fake sparking wine to make a delicious French 75!"
This makes sense from sheer numbers. Way less folks making mocktails. I love that Alinea book. Just wish there were good websites out there.
I've started doing spirit free cocktails recently, but I definitely get that there are way less resources than regular cocktails. However, zero has a section on making backbar alcohols such that you might be able to use them on regular cocktails, by substituting the alcohol with their spirit free version. The taste won't be the same of course, and you might have to alter the dosage, but it's better than nothing. Perhaps you won't be able to clarify an alcohol free wine, but I'm sure there are recipes that aren't ruined by replacing alcohol with its non alcoholic version
I have found kombucha to be unreasonably good at adding an interesting mouthfeel to cocktails. It's reminiscent of alcohol, but definitely not a perfect imitation. Grapefruit juice is also a regular ingredient of mine.
Grapefruit has a flavor kick for sure, but I would strongly advise against putting it into cocktails, at least without being very upfront and clear about it. Grapefruit has very strong interactions with such a large number of drugs, that even just the interactions themselves have a separate page on Wikipedia [0].
A lot of "NA" beers are also 0.5%. Incidentally, freshly baked bread is also often around 0.5% depending on the type of bread, as are very ripe bananas.
If you want a not-really-beer that's trivially easy to make at home, I suggest kalja
Just mash 100% dark rye (weyermanns chocolate rye) for.... some arbitrary time period (hours, and you don't even really need to keep temp up), maybe with some sugar for speed, and then ferment for... days (? 2 days? whatever), strain, and bottle (if you don't care about carbonation, just use mason jars), and stick it into the fridge for another couple days.
It's anywhere between 0.1-0.7% ABV depending on temperature, length of fermentation, etc.
Bonus, compared to kombucha, it doesn't look like some alien growth thing while fermenting
IMHO Angostura bitters have specific applications where they excel but are far from universally great. Their serious astringency and bitterness really step on other ingredients depending on the cocktail. I keep the following on hand (despite having retired my home bar a few years back):
As far as NA beverages go I like making spiced chocolate sodas, grapefruit tonics, pink lemonade (via Peychaud's), and just bitters and soda with these. The only thing I'm missing is a good orange bitter as I find the Fee Brothers one to be too aggressive.
It really is great, and something that can be ordered at just about any bar anywhere. Excellent as a stand-in between alcoholic beverages to avoid getting too plastered, or if rolling completely alcohol-free, enough to feed the oral fixation that comes with being in any typical drinking situation.
When I realized that drinking a cocktail every night wasn't great for my health, I found the bitters + soda to be a great substitute. A shot of apple cider vinegar can add a bit of complexity to it as well.
Liquid smoke is a poor substitute for smoke in food I can't imagine mixing it for effect in a drink. For humans?
They sell little bits of pre-charred and corrugated wood that you can put in "crappy whisky to make it taste fancy", which is what I'd use, except I'd use a bernzomatic and a piece of oak from my yard.
I bet lump charcoal would work, too, if you had a filter stage afterward.
Mocktails taught me what an _incredible_ solvent alcohol is. It's hard to replicate alcohol for flavor extraction. Luckily, the mocktails I'm making are fine to have a tiny amount of alcohol (my wife just doesn't drink, but it's not religious or health related). Bitters make things so much easier.
I feel like you could do even better than chilies/ginger for replicating the burn. The burn from chilies feels completely different than the burn from alcohol, because ethanol is much more volatile than capsaicin. Plausibly, using a more volatile TRPV1 agonist such as allyl isothiocyanate (from horseradish/mustard) would produce an even closer effect.
Back in 2022ish a non-alcoholic bottle shop opened up across from my house so I went in with a group of 7 friends and we bought one of each bottle they carried at the time, their Amethyst Lemon Cucumber Serrano bottle was the only one that we all really loved and felt and tasted like a real spirit.
They've expanded their selection since then but I haven't tried another round since I am not dry.
I still walk over and get that bottle for parties though to accommodate my dry friends, it's amazing.
Why recreate the burning sensation, by far the worst part about drinking alcohol? This seems like something where you could do better than the original by leaving out the unpleasantness. I guess maybe people actually like that (taste is subjective and all), but I personally hate it and it's why I don't drink much at all.
And alcohol is a children's drink that an adult left out because life was too hectic and I'm really thirsty so I'll just finish this apple juice that's been in my car since Saturday-heyheyhey hello ethanol.
Like kombucha was probably an accident, as was mead, incredibly lucky that yeast and lactobactre can outcompete nearly every other pathogen in the exact temperature ranges humans live under
The pre-mixed kombucha dry tea I bought was super sour, like an arnild palmer. It hit like lemonade on the first tingly fizzy sip. My wife was sensitive to smell so I stopped brewing. I haven't found any kombucha that had that degree of lemonade and icea tea going. I decant into growlers so I actually get a pretty violent pop, even after refrigeration.
What I don't understand is why all kombucha is refrigerated, I only drank mine cold because it is smoother that way, but straight off the 78° bucket was fine too!
It's really baked into the experience, and there's over a century (maybe two?) of evolution of cocktails that play well with it. I think the harsh flavor helps balance a lot of strong flavors and lets you build up powerful and complex combinations without anything becoming overwhelming. For now, mocktails are still just mock cocktails. They are missing the backbone that alcohol provides. Someday another strong flavor backbone will be discovered, and a new family of drinks will be built around it, with an new name. They'll be too good to call "mocktails."
Well, I have to say the more creamy Mocktails that use condensed sweetened milk or the ones using soy sauce are so savory that they probably would suck with alcohol, imho. I'd say there's a difference between just replacing alcohol with an alcohol less version and building structured spirit free cocktails from the ground up like those you can find in the books good drinks and Zero
Personally, a bit of zing is okay. Not too much tho. I don't like alcohol because of the aftertaste and too much of that burning feeling (if we're talking about something more alcoholic than beer).
A few days ago I made spirit free gin and it had a very faint zingy feeling due to the ginger.
However, I can't stand the mouthfeel of wine, as the article says I get my mouth all dry and bitter. But tea is OK for me. So I might enjoy a mocktail made with tea
I feel like if someone could figure out an "alcohol" that doesn't metabolize like alcohol or kill you will be a somethingillionarire. Or at least a beverage/food company another mountain of money.
You mean the same inebriation effects but without the same health risks?
I believe there are drugs that act on similar receptors, and are not as toxic or at least don't need to be taken in such high doses for the same effect.
My understanding is that the drug GHB has very similar effects to alcohol, in lower doses, but unfortunately in higher doses is used as a date rape drug.
Alcohol has the benefit of being somewhat naturally occurring. I don't see many other recreational drugs being legalized or so widely used.
"Kava" is supposed to mimic a drunk, in the way that Kratom mimics opiates and kanna mimics MDMA.
I only know that if you're not careful with kratom it will hurt you thru the exact same mechanisms that opiates do. No idea about dosing or anything on kava or kanna. I tried kanna but only low micro doses. It is like a slight mood elevator at low dosages, like I imagine "a beer with dinner" elevates mood slightly.
2.5 grams of kratom feels exactly like an oxy, down to wanting to tell everyone you really love them and is that shirt felt well it is now
Ah. no. sorry. i meant really just tastes like alcohol. but no inebriation or health effects. I really like the taste of alcohol in a drink, but don't want any of the effects.
Lots of drinks come close but the problem is that, despite some claims, alcohol does have a flavour.
There are some fully-fermented NA beers that use special strains of yeast that produce less alcohol that come quite close to the real thing and are very tasty, but they're just a lil off...
The article is interesting, but I didn't come away with it feeling like I have any idea how to replicate the flavor of alcohol in a non-alcoholic drink.
>If you've been following along, you may have concluded that you should be brewing up a batch of bitter, spicy, slightly sweet tea the next time you serve as designated driver. Gross.
>But, there's no need to do that.
Ok, so what do I actually do lol?
I think this advice is useful for mixed drinks which already have a lot of flavorful non-alcoholic ingredients like a bloody mary, but I doubt anybody is going to come up with a good substitute for a dry martini any time soon.
The article seemed very promising to me. I don’t drink and would like to have something fancy, innovative to drink some times when I bored of water, juices and soda.
But then the article starts saying the goal is to mimic alcohol taste. I don’t drink precisely because I hate the taste of alcohol. Bummer.
I gave up drinking 5 years ago. Just didn't want it in my life anymore. Started just feeling ick more often than not even with just a couple drinks. Just stopped feeling worth it. But I loved cocktails.
So we've been experimenting with a ton of things. By far the most fun one is this: https://weareraisingthebar.com/
It's pricey, but they expose me to all the new non-alcohol things out there. It's great if you just want an easy way to get fun new things without thinking too hard about this category.
Also, our very own Justin Kan, is a founder of Woody's Wine (NA): https://woodys.wine
So many good NA beers now. Athletic, Guinness, Heineken, all play well here.
Still looking for a good fake bourbon. My favorite so far is Free Sprits https://drinkfreespirits.com/collections/non-alcoholic-spiri... Fair warning though. None of these fake alcohols drink well on their own. I don't think anyone has a bourbon anyone is going to like on the rocks or neat. But it does well in mocktails.
I highly recommend trying to make some homemade ginger beer. It’s super easy, takes just a few days to ferment, lots of recipes online. Much better than the stuff in the store which is filled with added sugar or artificial sweeteners. Plus you can brew with extra ginger if you like it strong. Whatever you do, don’t ferment it in glass bottles. Use 2 liter plastic soda bottles.
Perhaps you might enjoy making cocktail yourselves :D
There is /r/Mocktails, imbibe magazine has a alcohol free section with a lot of recipes, and there are books as well - I'd suggest good drinks by Julia Bainbridge and Zero by alinea group-.
Here are a few recipes that Julia Bainbridge posted online: https://tastecooking.com/author/juliabainbridge/
The nyc special and the change of address are pretty nice imho
My biggest pain point is that there is no high end past Zero. The Julia book is solid.
In actual cocktails, there are a handful of books that are _incredible_ and cater to high end cocktails. I have ~600 bottles at home (I know...) and I really appreciate those books. I'm willing to make cranberry tequila rosemary ice. Or clarify a punch.
Almost every mocktail resource is... quite frankly... too simple. "Add lemon to fake sparking wine to make a delicious French 75!"
This makes sense from sheer numbers. Way less folks making mocktails. I love that Alinea book. Just wish there were good websites out there.
I've started doing spirit free cocktails recently, but I definitely get that there are way less resources than regular cocktails. However, zero has a section on making backbar alcohols such that you might be able to use them on regular cocktails, by substituting the alcohol with their spirit free version. The taste won't be the same of course, and you might have to alter the dosage, but it's better than nothing. Perhaps you won't be able to clarify an alcohol free wine, but I'm sure there are recipes that aren't ruined by replacing alcohol with its non alcoholic version
In that case, may I recommend a completely ... different type of experience?
https://www.adagio.com/
Before you engage, you can have in your head this 3 second clip on YouTube that I uploaded a decade ago :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeUARKgSWJw
Oh, that store sells samples for a small price, that's kinda cool, I'm probably gonna try some of their teas
I have found kombucha to be unreasonably good at adding an interesting mouthfeel to cocktails. It's reminiscent of alcohol, but definitely not a perfect imitation. Grapefruit juice is also a regular ingredient of mine.
Grapefruit has a flavor kick for sure, but I would strongly advise against putting it into cocktails, at least without being very upfront and clear about it. Grapefruit has very strong interactions with such a large number of drugs, that even just the interactions themselves have a separate page on Wikipedia [0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapefruit%E2%80%93drug_intera...
Typical commercial kombucha is about 0.5% ABV. Not exactly not alcohol.
A lot of "NA" beers are also 0.5%. Incidentally, freshly baked bread is also often around 0.5% depending on the type of bread, as are very ripe bananas.
If you want a not-really-beer that's trivially easy to make at home, I suggest kalja
Just mash 100% dark rye (weyermanns chocolate rye) for.... some arbitrary time period (hours, and you don't even really need to keep temp up), maybe with some sugar for speed, and then ferment for... days (? 2 days? whatever), strain, and bottle (if you don't care about carbonation, just use mason jars), and stick it into the fridge for another couple days.
It's anywhere between 0.1-0.7% ABV depending on temperature, length of fermentation, etc.
Bonus, compared to kombucha, it doesn't look like some alien growth thing while fermenting
> mouthfeel
This word is so gross I find any foods described using it as immediately and viscerally less palatable.
I love kombucha, but my sense memory did a gross little convolution for a second.
The concept of this word is important and otherwise hard to convey, but it's such a weird word.
You can just call it "texture," but it's a fun term d'art.
As with "automatic memory collection" for those grossed out by "garbage collection."
On the subject of words, I was really expecting "convulsion" rather than "convolution" there.
Agreed.
Angostura bitters are seriously magical. They improve everything. A few dashes are basically non-alcoholic, too.
The best mocktail, which even a grown man can enjoy without feeling silly, is as simple as bitters + tonic.
IMHO Angostura bitters have specific applications where they excel but are far from universally great. Their serious astringency and bitterness really step on other ingredients depending on the cocktail. I keep the following on hand (despite having retired my home bar a few years back):
As far as NA beverages go I like making spiced chocolate sodas, grapefruit tonics, pink lemonade (via Peychaud's), and just bitters and soda with these. The only thing I'm missing is a good orange bitter as I find the Fee Brothers one to be too aggressive.It really is great, and something that can be ordered at just about any bar anywhere. Excellent as a stand-in between alcoholic beverages to avoid getting too plastered, or if rolling completely alcohol-free, enough to feed the oral fixation that comes with being in any typical drinking situation.
When I realized that drinking a cocktail every night wasn't great for my health, I found the bitters + soda to be a great substitute. A shot of apple cider vinegar can add a bit of complexity to it as well.
Bitters and soda is a cocktail, though. I guess the poison is in the dose.
The book Zero by alinea has recipes for spirit free bitters as well,I'm sure you can find similar recipes online for free
I bought just now some liquid smoke and I wanna try it so much for spirit free whiskey
Liquid smoke is a poor substitute for smoke in food I can't imagine mixing it for effect in a drink. For humans?
They sell little bits of pre-charred and corrugated wood that you can put in "crappy whisky to make it taste fancy", which is what I'd use, except I'd use a bernzomatic and a piece of oak from my yard.
I bet lump charcoal would work, too, if you had a filter stage afterward.
Mocktails taught me what an _incredible_ solvent alcohol is. It's hard to replicate alcohol for flavor extraction. Luckily, the mocktails I'm making are fine to have a tiny amount of alcohol (my wife just doesn't drink, but it's not religious or health related). Bitters make things so much easier.
I feel like you could do even better than chilies/ginger for replicating the burn. The burn from chilies feels completely different than the burn from alcohol, because ethanol is much more volatile than capsaicin. Plausibly, using a more volatile TRPV1 agonist such as allyl isothiocyanate (from horseradish/mustard) would produce an even closer effect.
Back in 2022ish a non-alcoholic bottle shop opened up across from my house so I went in with a group of 7 friends and we bought one of each bottle they carried at the time, their Amethyst Lemon Cucumber Serrano bottle was the only one that we all really loved and felt and tasted like a real spirit.
They've expanded their selection since then but I haven't tried another round since I am not dry.
I still walk over and get that bottle for parties though to accommodate my dry friends, it's amazing.
To me, alcohol burns a lot at first, in a similar way to wasabi, then it settles down to something more akin to capsaicin/ginger burn in the throat
Why recreate the burning sensation, by far the worst part about drinking alcohol? This seems like something where you could do better than the original by leaving out the unpleasantness. I guess maybe people actually like that (taste is subjective and all), but I personally hate it and it's why I don't drink much at all.
I love a bit of the burn, and I've been looking for a way to recreate it without alcohol. (probably impossible)
Alcohol feels like the only "adult drink" you can have which isn't sugar based (ironic because a lot of alcohol is sugar)
other that it's just tea, coffee, and water.
Alcohol is sugar!?
I guess you mean alcoholic drinks often contain lots of sugar, but you can have something like vodka which is pretty much water and ethanol.
For sure that ethanol was made by yeast processing sugar, but the amount in the final product is up to you!
Alcohol is distilled from sugar and its relatives. Glucose and its ilk.
Ever eaten a grape?
Why, are we out of nails?
And alcohol is a children's drink that an adult left out because life was too hectic and I'm really thirsty so I'll just finish this apple juice that's been in my car since Saturday-heyheyhey hello ethanol.
Like kombucha was probably an accident, as was mead, incredibly lucky that yeast and lactobactre can outcompete nearly every other pathogen in the exact temperature ranges humans live under
I uh, you’re so edgy?
Ginger kombucha has a nice spicey burn to it that I enjoy. Not quite the same, but similar enough.
The pre-mixed kombucha dry tea I bought was super sour, like an arnild palmer. It hit like lemonade on the first tingly fizzy sip. My wife was sensitive to smell so I stopped brewing. I haven't found any kombucha that had that degree of lemonade and icea tea going. I decant into growlers so I actually get a pretty violent pop, even after refrigeration.
What I don't understand is why all kombucha is refrigerated, I only drank mine cold because it is smoother that way, but straight off the 78° bucket was fine too!
It's really baked into the experience, and there's over a century (maybe two?) of evolution of cocktails that play well with it. I think the harsh flavor helps balance a lot of strong flavors and lets you build up powerful and complex combinations without anything becoming overwhelming. For now, mocktails are still just mock cocktails. They are missing the backbone that alcohol provides. Someday another strong flavor backbone will be discovered, and a new family of drinks will be built around it, with an new name. They'll be too good to call "mocktails."
Well, I have to say the more creamy Mocktails that use condensed sweetened milk or the ones using soy sauce are so savory that they probably would suck with alcohol, imho. I'd say there's a difference between just replacing alcohol with an alcohol less version and building structured spirit free cocktails from the ground up like those you can find in the books good drinks and Zero
Personally, a bit of zing is okay. Not too much tho. I don't like alcohol because of the aftertaste and too much of that burning feeling (if we're talking about something more alcoholic than beer).
A few days ago I made spirit free gin and it had a very faint zingy feeling due to the ginger.
However, I can't stand the mouthfeel of wine, as the article says I get my mouth all dry and bitter. But tea is OK for me. So I might enjoy a mocktail made with tea
I feel like if someone could figure out an "alcohol" that doesn't metabolize like alcohol or kill you will be a somethingillionarire. Or at least a beverage/food company another mountain of money.
Like discovering fake sweeteners.
You mean the same inebriation effects but without the same health risks?
I believe there are drugs that act on similar receptors, and are not as toxic or at least don't need to be taken in such high doses for the same effect.
My understanding is that the drug GHB has very similar effects to alcohol, in lower doses, but unfortunately in higher doses is used as a date rape drug.
Alcohol has the benefit of being somewhat naturally occurring. I don't see many other recreational drugs being legalized or so widely used.
"Kava" is supposed to mimic a drunk, in the way that Kratom mimics opiates and kanna mimics MDMA.
I only know that if you're not careful with kratom it will hurt you thru the exact same mechanisms that opiates do. No idea about dosing or anything on kava or kanna. I tried kanna but only low micro doses. It is like a slight mood elevator at low dosages, like I imagine "a beer with dinner" elevates mood slightly.
2.5 grams of kratom feels exactly like an oxy, down to wanting to tell everyone you really love them and is that shirt felt well it is now
Ah. no. sorry. i meant really just tastes like alcohol. but no inebriation or health effects. I really like the taste of alcohol in a drink, but don't want any of the effects.
Lots of drinks come close but the problem is that, despite some claims, alcohol does have a flavour.
There are some fully-fermented NA beers that use special strains of yeast that produce less alcohol that come quite close to the real thing and are very tasty, but they're just a lil off...
exactly. I drink a lot of things like Athletic over here.
The article is interesting, but I didn't come away with it feeling like I have any idea how to replicate the flavor of alcohol in a non-alcoholic drink.
>If you've been following along, you may have concluded that you should be brewing up a batch of bitter, spicy, slightly sweet tea the next time you serve as designated driver. Gross.
>But, there's no need to do that.
Ok, so what do I actually do lol?
I think this advice is useful for mixed drinks which already have a lot of flavorful non-alcoholic ingredients like a bloody mary, but I doubt anybody is going to come up with a good substitute for a dry martini any time soon.
The article seemed very promising to me. I don’t drink and would like to have something fancy, innovative to drink some times when I bored of water, juices and soda.
But then the article starts saying the goal is to mimic alcohol taste. I don’t drink precisely because I hate the taste of alcohol. Bummer.
So far, the best NA cocktail I've found is Phony Negroni - their negronis and amaro are quite good:
https://stagrestis.com/pages/non-alcoholic
Scanning the list wondering why opioid addicts haven't figured this one out yet; less drugs, more fun.
I've actually been semi-addicted to grapefruit juice.
Alcohol in cocktails is like MSG in cooking. Sometimes you just have to sneak some in there to tie everything together.
Shrubs are a fun addition as well. They seem to have fallen out of favor in the last couple years.
I could never get into shrubs because the vinegar smell was overpowering. They tasted fine-ish, but no thank you.
Trader Joes Jalapeno Lemonade as base
Apple Cider Vinegar is a great base for mocktails.