Taking a four-week break from drinking in the run-up to stupid season always seems like a good idea. To recharge your batteries and reset, get ready for the upcoming avalanche of alcohol-related scenarios. What's not worth being on board with?
Research has never been clearer: even slightly reducing alcohol consumption can lead to improvements in blood pressure, mental health and liver function. It may reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease and improve sleep, skin and energy levels.
But for many of us, the thought of a month of abstinence from alcohol is darker than the thought of Scandinavia's crime drama at the height of winter, and trust me, it's bleak.
How so? Because until recently, it was difficult to find decent, zero-proof alternatives. Most non-alcoholic shockers were made by the devil's hand (and not in a good way), and even these were outrageously expensive.
The wine substitutes were flawed, the whites were dry and floral while the reds were bittersweet and tannic. The alternative to alcohol was the Emperor's New Clothes, sweet botanical water, packaged and priced like a bottle of your favorite brand of alcohol, based on tonic water.
But why so expensive? Because preparing a soft drink that imitates alcohol in the mouth often requires high-quality, specialized ingredients handcrafted in small batches, which is an expensive process. While there will always be a hole where the alcohol should be, the trick is to fill it with something comparable.
In the past, it was limited to sugar and citric acid. Today, there are many alternatives to plug the alcohol gap, ranging from chili, ginger, apple cider vinegar, GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) or CBD, ingredients that give the drink a bite and give the drinker a tingling or relaxing sensation. .
Luckily for us, the quality and selection have never been better. This has a lot to do with supply and demand, as the low or no alcohol sector has overtaken the alcohol market at +47% of volume in 2023.
And while there are still many that I would steer clear of, here are the best of 2024 glass.
No alcohol, well everything might be a little bland. Especially beer, which suffers from the lack of the sweet, warming effect of alcohol, which also affects its characteristic taste, affecting the pairing of other flavors.
They added lactose to it, enhancing the flavor and giving it a creamy sweetness. It works, it's full of flavor with notes of grapefruit and lemon and a hoppy, nutty finish. Good job.
If you're craving a glass of Merlot but don't want all the alcohol, stop choking, this is a nice substitute. It's on the lean side with a bit of spice to warm up the cockles, a vale of plums and some spiced oak notes.
Not exactly zero alcohol, but at 3.4% it's a session lager next door. You're trying to convince a beer drinker to choose wine when the average bottle is 37% stronger than a pint of lager. It's hard, but not anymore.
One of only two gold medals handed out at a recent awards ceremony, this bottle scored 92 out of 100. You can see why the product relies on a complex blend of herbs including alpine ginger, angelica, orris root and Indian coriander. and Sicilian lemon, with Yorkshire rhubarb and African ginger.
It is warming and fruity with a bit of sweetness. I drank it with a large ice cube and really enjoyed it.
Aperol Spritz fans will take to it like a duck to water. Pentire is a cool soft drinks brand based in Cornwall. They create botanical spirits that use local Cornish flora and fauna, with a touch of coastal influence.
This one is more of an aperitif-style drink, somewhere between it and a sparkling Negroni (Sbagliato). The botanicals include blood orange, sea rosemary and oakwood, and the base is sparkling spring water.
I was unexpectedly delighted with this sparkling drink, made with white peony tea. With notes of hibiscus, ginger, red flowers and tea, it is a delicate and satisfying alternative to rosé.
Fermented non-alcoholic tea provides complexity and texture without the need for added sugar. Especially when it's a rare and expensive tea from specific regions of Fujian Province in China, like this one. The leaves are wok-roasted to stop oxidation and retain their flavor, soaked and naturally fermented, primarily in Buckinghamshire.
I'm usually suspicious of sparkling wine substitutes, but I'm very impressed with Bolle's sparkling rosé (they also make a Blanc de Blanc at the same price).
Close your eyes and you can sip youthful English sparkling rosé, wild strawberries and blood orange sorbet. There is a bit of a yeasty and nutty note to it which adds to its authenticity considering it has been fermented twice using a patent-pending technique. This is definitely a new favorite.
It's a non-alcoholic drink for adults, created by a conservation biologist. Therefore, he is no stranger to studying plants such as acacia and seaweed to replace the viscosity missing in the alcohol vacuum.
Enter the Everleaf forest, made of saffron, vanilla, citrus flowers, gentian and other plants. It is slightly bitter with notes of orange peel, coriander seeds and fennel with warming and slightly medicinal notes of saffron.
I had to revisit this because honestly, I wasn't a fan when I first tried it last year. Sorry, Spencer Matthews from Made in Chelsea, the founder.
Whether or not the recipe has been changed since then, it is now much more complex and substantial. It is exactly a gin substitute, distilled in copper stills like regular gin with botanical additions such as juniper, lemongrass, English cucumber and sweet basil. There are warming spices like ginger that cover the alcohol and I think they work quite well.
Regardless of the season and day of the week, I drink Botivo, even if I do not limit alcohol, it is really tasty.
Inspired by bitter aperitif-style drinks and made by adding 5 bittersweet, herbal and citrus botanicals (including rosemary, orange peel and wildflower honey) to a fermented apple base (aged apple cider vinegar). I serve mine with tonic garnished with an orange wedge, but that's just me. You can add soda or toss it as a base for a smoothie (or smoothie once Octsober is done).
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