Alcohol-free cocktails by the_cocktailguy
Happy New Year! A gentle breeze of optimism begins to blows on January 1. Carried in the light wind is the hope that this year will be better and different. That we ourselves will be better and different.
This hope, nourished by the opportunity to hit the reset button, leads to making personal vows and promises to do things in a different way for the next 365 days and beyond--read more, workout more, eat better, be nicer, answer emails more promptly, post blogs more regularly (ahem!)--all those things that we think will make ourselves and our lives better.
Engaging in this process can lead to an honest examination of, or at least a good look at, our relationship with alcohol. For many this means taking on Dry January, a whole month of not drinking. Others give up alcohol for good, or at least drink more moderately in the coming year, asking themselves, Do I really want that drink?
For as much as alcohol is at the center of our professional and personal lives here at Night Owl Hospitality, we get it. We won’t steer you away from Dry January or any other approach you take to moderate your drinking. We get it because we acknowledge that alcohol is tricky business.
What lies at the center of alcohol’s complicated role in our lives is that it’s never just one thing. It has a dual nature. What I mean by this is alcohol ‘s unique property of encompassing polar opposites. It can, for example, be deleterious and beneficial to our health. It’s consumed in good times and bad. It’s a product of both agriculture and industry. It’s sacred and profane. It’s urbane and lowbrow. It’s so many conflicting things.
For the 9000-plus years that we humans have intentionally been producing and consuming alcohol we haven’t manage to successfully negotiate alcohol’s duality, and thus we have oscillated between accepting it and demonizing it. Evidence of this is the U.S.’s prohibition on alcohol that went into effect 101 years ago on January 17. There were some sound, well-intentioned reasons to give the noble experiment a go (other reasons were less savory: bigotry, racism, and nativism), but, as we know, whatever the rationale for prohibition, it didn’t work.
So, what to do? I can’t answer this definitively other than to reiterate that alcohol is tricky business. So it’s up to you to determine what you want to do.
Luckily, we are currently living during a time when there’s heightened awareness and understanding about people’s uneasy relationship with alcohol. This extends to the business side of alcohol. Bartenders are creating delicious alcohol-free cocktails and “low ABV” ones that are as delectably nuanced as their high-octane versions. The beverage industry is coming out with alcohol-free cocktails, beers, and wine.
We at Night Owl are on board as well. Whenever we do a cocktail demonstration (now mostly online) we are careful to showcase alcohol-free versions of our drinks. That goes for our catering gigs, too, when we get back to doing them again in a post-Covid world.
If you’re sober curious, as they say, here are some tasty alcohol-free drinks, based on classics, that you can give a whirl for Dry January or whenever, for yourself or whomever.
Rosemary & Tonic
2 oz Rosemary-juniper syrup*
½ oz Fresh lemon juice
4 oz Tonic water (preferably Fever Tree or Q Tonic)
Garnishes: Rosemary sprig, lemon wheel, and (optional) whole juniper berries
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Fill a wide-mouth wine glass three-quarters full of ice. Pour in rosemary-juniper syrup and lemon juice and then gently pour in the tonic water. Gently stir to combine. Garnish with the rosemary sprig, lemon wheel, and a few juniper berries (optional).
Shortcut: Skip the syrup.
* Rosemary-Juniper Syrup
1 sprig Fresh rosemary
1 Tabl Whole juniper berries, slightly crushed (optional; if you don’t have, use an additional sprig of rosemary)
½ cup Water
½ cup Sugar
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Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a gentle boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Remove the saucepan from heat and cover. Let steep for 20 minutes and let syrup come to room temperature. Strain into a container and keep in fridge until needed.
Old-Fashioned Tea
2 oz Strong tea (room temperature or chilled)
½ oz Simple syrup or 1 Tabl sugar
2 dashes Angostura bitters (note this does contain alcohol)
Garnish: Orange twist
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Add all the ingredients except the garnish to a mixing glass. Add ice and stir until combined and chilled. Strain into an old-fashioned glass. Gently add a large ice cube to the glass (optional). Express the orange twist and drop into the glass.
No Words
2 oz Celery shrub**
3 Maraschino cherries (preferably Luxardo)
1 tsp Syrup from the maraschino cherries
2 oz Club soda
Garnish: Maraschino cherry
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Add the cherries to a cocktail shaker and muddle thoroughly. Add the celery shrub and syrup to the cocktail shaker and fill with ice. Shake vigorously and strain into a chilled coupe. Top with club soda and garnish with a maraschino cherry.
Short cut: Pour chilled cherry-flavored kombucha into a coupe and garnish with a lime wheel.
**Celery Shrub
Adapted from the New York Times
½ lb Celery
¼ cup Water
½ cup Sugar
½ Apple cider vinegar
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Coarsely chop the celery, including leaves. Add chopped celery and water to a food processor and blend until smooth and pourable. Add a bit more water if necessary. Strain into a jar and add sugar and apple cider vinegar. Shake vigorously until sugar dissolves. Store in fridge until needed, shaking