Traditionally associated with teetotalers, sober souls and children, mocktails have emerged from the very bottom of menus to an audience beyond those merely abstaining from booze. Sophisticated, nonalcoholic concoctions, which use ingredients ranging from zero-proof spirits to syrups made from fruits and botanicals, are a celebrated drink in their own right, particularly among Gen Z demographics. This surge in popularity aligns with a broader shift in consumer tastes.
RELATED: Here are 3 great spots for tasty mocktails in the Bay Area
According to NielsenIQ data, a good portion of consumers are consciously reducing their alcohol intake, citing health and wellness concerns, changing social dynamics, and evolving interests as main drivers. This trend is further evidenced by the meteoric rise of companies like Athletic Brewing, the world’s largest dedicated nonalcoholic brewery, which witnessed an astonishing revenue growth from its inception in 2018, generating $90 million in revenue in 2023. Santa Ana-based Bravus Brewing Co., North America’s first nonalcoholic craft brewery, introduced Wine0 (pronounced “wine-oh”), a low ABV, or low alcohol by volume, sparkling rosé for the mass market in 2024. And nonalcoholic Guinness 0.0 nabbed a $32.5 million investment to double production in the next year.
As the year starts afresh, and resolutions are made and broken, many people take the Dry January challenge where people abstain from alcohol for the entire month. According to data from CivicScience, an estimated one-fourth of Americans ages 21 and older will take part in the annual promise of swearing off alcohol for 31 days, a tradition rooted in a circa-1942 Finnish government campaign called “Sober January” as part of its war effort.
For those dipping your toes in the ethanol-free waters, myriad beverages await at an increasing number of bars and restaurants.
The mocktail’s history
The two most famous temperance drinks, otherwise known as the mocktail (a term that dates back to 1916, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary), arrived in the Prohibition era with the advent of the Virgin Mary, a booze-free Bloody Mary created in the 1920s. Soon after, the Shirley Temple, christened after the Depression-era child star of black-and-white pictures, appeared on menus in the 1930s. The pink-hued virgin tipple, whose disputed origins are credited to a number of Hollywood restaurants, including Chasen’s or Brown Derby Restaurant, features ginger ale or lemon-lime soda laced with grenadine, maraschino cherry and lemon for garnish. The faux-boozy beverage provided a glamorous option for the child actress to sip when she was dining out with her parents. (For the record, Temple allegedly didn’t care for her namesake drink, despite going to court in 1988 to defend it against companies trying to use her name to sell a bottled version.)
RELATED: Walnut Creek’s first nonalcoholic bar to open in Broadway Plaza, will feature menu designed by Wildseed chef
Other abstemious cocktails slowly found their way onto menus thereafter, like the Arnold Palmer, featuring iced tea and lemonade, named after the legendary golfer, which was created in the late 1960s, and the Roy Rogers, a 1940s-era drink made with cola and grenadine syrup, and garnished with a maraschino cherry. Now many restaurants and esteemed cocktail joints offer a litany of drinks that go above and beyond pouring two or more sweet liquids over ice.
“We learned very quickly, about two years ago, that there was this really big need for a zero-proof section on our menu,” said Ying Chang, who, along with her husband, Robert Adamson, owns James Beard Award-nominated Strong Water in Anaheim. Of her cocktail menu’s 40 drinks, which hone in on nautical culture, four of them fall under the mocktail category, “which is a lot considering most places have maybe one or two.”
Noting that “curating a zero-proof section is even harder than curating a cocktail menu,” Chang uses components that evoke ethanol spirits’ taste when creating Strong Water’s no-alcohol libations by using non-distilled spirits, like Lyre’s, a U.K.-based nonalcoholic spirit company.
“Lyre’s is very popular. They kind of hit all categories, whether you’re looking for a London Dry, or you’re looking for a rum,” she explained. “Obviously, it doesn’t have alcohol in it, but it has a reminiscent flavor of it. Using that in combination with other things like fresh juices can really make for a really fun cocktail.”
Striving for balance
Low-alcohol drinks typically have no more than 10% alcohol by volume (ABV), while zero-proof drinks, also known as alcohol-free or nonalcoholic beverages, are made with fresh produce, juices, tonics, and other mixers but can also feature zero-proof wine, beer and spirits. Chang’s Strong Water Anaheim features two zero-proof cocktails under its mocktails menu, which include the Anana Rising (billed as a bright and juicy beverage with pineapple, lemon, cinnamon and walnut bitters) and the Tarobi Colada (tropical, rich and creamy with pineapple, lime, coconut, taro cream and sugar cane).
“When we make a mocktail, we have to work on the flavor profile of the spirit component and play with it,” she said. “When you’re doing it with no alcohol, it’s a little bit more difficult because finding that balance is harder. But we have a really fun program right now that a lot of people really appreciate.”
At Playa Provisions, bartender Arik Silva created zero-proof drinks for the Playa del Rey restaurant, including its most popular one, the Golden Slumbers. “It’s basically a riff on a spicy Paloma,” a tequila-based cocktail made using grapefruit juice, lime juice and grapefruit soda or sparkling water,” he said. “Here we use use a nice passion fruit puree mixed with a little bit of grapefruit juice. It’s something that not only tastes good, but it’s also well balanced — and that’s key to making a good mocktail.”
Silva stresses that simply adding sweet juice to sugary sodas no longer suffices when it comes to making a satisfying mocktail. “The moment you say, ‘Hey, I’m gonna add some kind of juice to Sprite,’ you’re getting into dangerous territory,” he said. “You really want something that’s going to be complex.”
His other zero-proof creations for the seaside eatery include the Switchel (which uses Ritual Zero Proof gin, spicy watermelon shrub), the Amalfi Highball (Ritual Zero Proof whiskey, coconut and San Pellegrino Limonata) and the Please Please Me (Ritual Zero Proof whiskey, Oleo Saccharum, and bitters).
Bitters, a neutral alcohol infused with spices, herbs, roots, and other ingredients, are often used to enhance cocktails; Chang uses Fee Brothers, a nonalcoholic version for her drinks. “You have to do more research,” she said. “You do have to look for certain bitters that just have no alcohol at all, because bitters are generally alcohol-based.”
ALSO SEE: Mocktails for kids, thanks to Shirley Temple
A big hurdle when creating his sober-safe drinks is sourcing quality ingredients, saying that “finding different ingredients that don’t contain alcohol can be a challenge, because there are hundreds of different liquors and amaro out there that I can use to whip up something up real quick, but there are only so many nonalcoholic ingredients that come in liquid form.”
Another issue surrounding such are the price, which, while not as steep as a regular mocktail, they do tend to cost more than an iced tea or diet soda, the onetime preferred tipple for temperance. Silva said that “nonalcoholic spirits can come at a pricey level” but that other non-spirit replacements, like infused syrups and sodas, “comes down to the different types of produce and the cost of what we get it for.”
Also of grave importance, the drink has to look good in addition to tasting and smelling good. “We use very similar parameters in making a zero-proof cocktail as we do our regular cocktails,” she said. “It still has to have a beautiful garnish, but it also has to make sense — it’s not a garnish to be a garnish.” Other Strong Water aesthetic staples, like Swizzle sticks, little flags and umbrellas “really add that personal touch to it.”
Mocktails can be found at nearly every saloon and tavern, even if their hallowed halls lack a dedicated zero-proof menu. San Juan Capistrano’s Swallows Inn, a dive that wears the label with pride, has seasoned bartenders who can whip up proof-free potations from sunrise (it opens at 8 a.m.) to closing.
During a recent visit to the famed watering hole, Tony Gomes, a bartender 34 years in the game, simply asked what kind of mocktail I wanted — fruity? not too sweet? — and concocted a delicious zero-proof drink on the spot, carefully blending ginger ale, pineapple juice, orange juice and grenadine with an orange segment and cherry garnish. The price of which comes to around $3 or $4, the price they would charge for a glass of orange juice.
Gomes notes that nondrinkers should feel comfortable asking any bartender to make a booze-free drink. “I can make anything people want,” he said. “Sure, this is a drinker’s bar, but I want to make everyone feel comfortable.”
While the seasoned bartender says that Swallows Inn doesn’t see as many requests for mocktails as some other bars, he has noticed the trend inside the South County bar. “It’s definitely a popular craze — and it should be,” he said. “It’s about making people feel comfortable in places where people drink.”
RELATED: 3 great cocktail recipes for your Super Bowl LVIII party (plus mocktail options)
Gomes says that the bar also carries Heineken 0.0, the brand’s zero-proof beer that teetotaling customers can select.
Should you want to make your own mocktails, Chang said it’s all about finding the right balance, with a light hand when it comes to sweetness. “I think for me the citrus-to-sugar ratio is really important, especially in tropical cocktails,” she said, recommending at-home bartenders to “start low and kind of add a little bit of sweetness at a time to really get that balance.”
Silva recommends alcohol-free bitters for a surefire at-home cocktail hit. “That’s a big one, especially for those who like to have so-called boozier cocktails, like old fashioned Manhattans, get yourself a nice nonalcoholic bitter.” He went on to suggest giving your drinks a resting period too. “When it comes to [mocktails], let them sit for a second, let them dilute a little bit” before serving.
Mocktails and alcoholism
Motivations for abstaining from alcohol run the gamut, encompassing health concerns, religious convictions and the life-and-death need for sobriety. Offering nonalcoholic beverages enhances inclusivity, allowing people with varied lifestyles to participate in social drinking rituals. However, for those in sustained recovery, where complete abstinence is paramount, the composition of nonalcoholic alternatives is crucial.
Many such drinks, by design, are meant to mimic the taste and complexities found on their alcohol-fueled siblings. Far more advanced than the days of “near beer,” distilleries and breweries now produce zero-proof whiskeys, tequilas, wines and craft beers that, for better or for worse, taste like the real thing. For many people in drug and alcohol recovery, mocktails that use zero-proof alcohol or spirits, which taste like the real deal, aren’t always advisable.
“I don’t want to taste alcohol, it’s incredibly triggering,” said a person in recovery who asked to remain anonymous. “I haven’t had alcohol on purpose for over a decade, so to suddenly taste it could trigger all sorts of alcoholic stuff in my brain. I don’t need that.”
Mocktails that use flavors and syrups as the backbone of their drink, rather than zero-proof spirits, can be more prudent for those who identify as alcoholics. Even alcohol-free wines, which, enjoyed from an all-too-familiar wine glass, can taste shockingly similar to the real thing, ushering in unwelcome provocation.
Enjoying them is a choice a person a recovering alcoholic must make for themselves. Sometimes a bar setting is not the ideal spot for some seeking continuous sobriety. For people in recovery who choose abstinence, especially the early days of recovery, be sure to ask your server whether a mocktail uses zero-proof as opposed to low ABV. And if you don’t want to risk it? Soda is always a safe bet.
“People want to be helpful, which I understand, but recovery in alcoholism is something only other alcoholics or addicts could really understand,” said my sober friend. “When in doubt, La Croix can be found everywhere.”
Mocktails go mainstream
Dedicated mocktail bars have emerged over the last few years, like the short-lived Stay Zero Proof in Los Angeles or the successful Khan Saab in Fullerton, which has an entirely nonalcoholic bar program.
While perfect for a sober night out, tasty mocktails aren’t limited to bars, high-end or otherwise. The movement has even reached mainstream establishments, with chain restaurants and grocery stores expanding their offerings: Ritual Zero Proof, as its name suggests, produce rum, gin, tequila, whiskey and aperitif alternatives that promise “to make any cocktail nonalcoholic.” And national chains, like Postino, a restaurant and wine bar chain with locations in the United States, including California, rolled out five zero-proof cocktails on its menus on Jan. 1, 2025.
Even Coors Light debuted booze-free, beer-flavored popsicles for March Madness season in 2023.
The world of nonalcoholic beverages is as vast and alluring as it is booming. Experiment, explore and uncover what tickles your palate. From innovative creations to sparkling water adorned with a lime garnish, the possibilities are endless. The morning-after headaches? A distant memory.
Originally Published:
