All of the Indulgence, None of the Alcohol

Photograph By: Theodore Samuels

I am not a mom, and I don’t really plan on being one, so I can't give you tips for how to get your kids to eat their vegetables or cool ways to organize their art supplies. But! I can help you make a delicious drink.

Key word, here: you. Remember you? You deserve some pleasure, and that's who I'm here for: you.

You, I am told, aren't drinking alcohol right now. Maybe you, like me, don't drink at all, or maybe you're going dry for January. People don't drink for all kinds of reasons, and, frankly, those reasons don't need to be a conversation if you don’t want them to be.

Photograph by: Alex Lau // Courtesy of Ten Speed Press

Luckily, there's never been a better time to abstain from alcohol (for whatever reason). Bartenders have started to push against the boundaries that previously limited “mocktails” to syrup-laden juices or glorified Shirley Temples, a newfound acceptance and energy I discuss in my book, Good Drinks. To write it, I spent a few months on the road, tasting and talking with the people whose job it is to make good-tasting, balanced beverages—no matter the alcohol content. Here are a few tips I learned along the way that might help you:

Consider tea as an ingredient: The tannins in some teas will dry out your palate and draw you back in, a sensation that can be so pleasurable about a great cocktail. Plus, there’s range within the world of tea. Woody pu-erh will give you something different from light, floral chamomile.

Think about balance: Nonalcoholic cocktails have a bad reputation for being too sugary, but you won’t run into that issue if you understand how to balance the sweetness with other flavors. “Treat a nonalcoholic drink like a dish,” says Sean Umstead of Kingfisher in Durham, North Carolina. “Consider basic components—sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami.”

Rely on products: Just a couple of years ago, if you wanted to make an alcohol-free drink with some complexity, you’d have to do some serious work in the kitchen. I’m one of those people who likes tinkering, but some aren’t, or just don’t have the time. Today, there are more and more sophisticated alcohol-free products coming onto the market that deliver bitterness or nuance so all you have to do is pour them over ice or mix them with soda or tonic water. Try Ghia or Lyre’s Italian Orange, or poke around the Delmosa and No & Low websites.

Throw the rules out of the window: Here’s how I want you to think about making good drinks: What are you trying to deliver? A flavor? A texture? A mood? A journey? Start there, then experiment and see what suits your tastes. And, speaking of that: Trust your own tastes!

And here are a couple of recipes to try:

While I hate to play favorites, the Verjus Spritz is one of my go-to recipes from the book because all it requires is the opening and pouring of three ingredients: tonic water, soda water, and white verjus. Verjus is the juice of unripe wine grapes; white verjus is crisp and tart with an elegant, soft acidity to it. (Fusion makes a red and a white that both play well with other ingredients and, once opened, will keep in the fridge for about a month.) This spritz complements food, but I like it best as an aperitif, sipped with something crispy and salty, like good-old plain potato chips.