Don’t Call Them ‘Mocktails’: How To Amp Up Your Non-Alcoholic Drinks For Dry January

CHICAGO — Are you still doing Dry January? If so, congratulations on making it through the first week! A lot of people don’t — in fact, a 2023 study found that only 16 percent of Dry January hopefuls last all the way to the end of the month.

You’re probably sleeping well, you may be enjoying more funds in your wallet and your pants are likely roomier than they were 10 days ago.

But at this point in the Dryuary game, are you getting a little … bored? Your cranberry and soda at the bar and can of LaCroix at the end of the day just aren’t sending you the way your favorite beer/wine/cocktail used to.

Not to worry. With the rise in “sober curious” drinkers, there are a lot more varied — and interesting — non-alcoholic options than there used to be. In fact, many of the people Block Club Chicago talked to pointed to the end of the term “mocktail”: Today’s NA drinks aren’t just takeoffs of your regular highball, but preferable beverages in their own right. And some ideas are so delicious, you may want to take them into February and beyond.

Here’s how to raise your drink game for the rest of your dry month.

Consider Your Base

The thing that cocktails have over most “mocktails” is a strong foundation: gin, rum, tequila, whatever. It’s easy to build a delicious concoction from a strong spirit, even if you just add tonic water and a lime wedge.

That’s why your NA drinks may benefit from some NA liquor. Many vendors now offer not only alcoholic beers and wines, but spirits as well.

Seedlip, for example, sells a variety of botanical ingredient blends that lack both alcohol and sugar. Seedlip Herbal is a nearly intoxicating blend of peas and garden herbs like rosemary, thyme and spearmint. For citrus lovers, Seedlip Grove is filled with orange, lemon peel, lemongrass and ginger. NA spirits this complex make it easy to whip up a refreshing spritz with only a few additional ingredients.

“It’s shelf-stable, so you can open and close it and put it on your bar cart, just like your other spirits, and then use it as a base in cocktails to build flavors up,” said Aria Accitta, a regional brand ambassador for Seedlip. “It’s a source of inspiration.”

(Don’t expect to save money with Seedlip, though; it costs just about as much to make as a bottle of alcohol, so its retail price is similar.)

If you want something that tastes more like what you’ve been drinking the rest of the year, Ritual offers zero-proof spirits that are surprisingly similar to the real thing, whether you mix their rum with a ginger beer or make an Old-Fashioned with their whiskey.

Or splurge the other way: on your sodas and mixers. All-natural Avec boasts “premium carbonated drinks” delicious enough to enjoy on their own with combos like ‎jalapeño and blood orange and hibiscus and pomegranate. Fever Tree‘s options include a sparkling Sicilian lemonade and an elderflower tonic water that will mix well with anything. You can find these in the mixer section of your fancier grocery and wine stores.

Not Too Sweet

Some bartenders pour too much sugar into their NA drinks, thinking they can replace alcohol with Kool-Aid flavor. But your January drink of choice doesn’t have to be super-sweet.

“What a lot of people forget about is you can always add sweetness, but you can’t back it out,” said Jamie Gump, wine sales specialist at Eataly Chicago, 43 E. Ohio St., which recently hosted a non-alcoholic cocktail class. “If you make a cocktail and it’s not sweet enough, you can add a simple syrup, agave nectar, there’s a lot of different ways to make it sweeter. But you can never make it less sweet. So unsweetened juices are really good.”

You could even go the savory route, Gump said.

“The other thing that my wife and I have been playing around with is taking food combinations that you like and trying to replicate them in cocktails. Almost making like a teriyaki style-like cocktail by balancing things like savory cocktails, rather than all the time we think of like, fruit fruit fruit … sweet and sour or sweet and bitter are easy ones to do. But trying to go down that path. There’s also a rice water similar to a rice wine is fermented, but without alcohol. That gives you a lot more of savory umami notes on that.”

Drink Outside The Box

Get creative. Mix uncommon fruit juices together (for example, persimmon is very much a wintry juice). Even though it’s winter, you can find fresh (please, not dried) herbs at the grocery store, and you’d be surprised how much a simple insert or garnish can add to your NA cocktail. Lemon and thyme is a gimme, but what about basil and vanilla? Grapefruit and tarragon?

“Put something in your drink that’s unexpected,” said Jonah, a bartender at cocktail lounge Bokeh, 4716 N. Kedzie Ave. For example, the “You’re Turning Violet, Violet” on Bokeh’s exemplary NA cocktail menu mixes blueberry juice and sage for a surprising and delicious twist.

At Logan Square tavern Spilt Milk, 2758 W. Fullerton Ave., the N/A option on its extensive drink menu is listed as “dealer’s choice”: Let the bartender know your preferences and you wind up with a specially crafted cocktail.  

Spilt Milk bartender Heather said she enjoys trying to match drinks to individual “flavor profiles,” with special syrups like hibiscus and cardamom to augment an NA cocktail.

You can even doll up your NA beer (even though those have also improved greatly over the past few year – you can even get NA IPAs and Guinness) by making your own radler with a shot of citrus. A splash of vinegar adds brightness to any drink, and a slice of cucumber automatically makes anything fancier.

“Always make it fun. Have a fun glass, have a fun garnish,” said Accitta, and January may go by more quickly than you’d imagine.

Turn To The Experts

When all else fails, head to a local tavern for inspiration, as many offer inspired NA drinks. Bokeh bartender Jonah suggested trying any one of Bokeh’s myriad cocktails: “Take one of our favorites on the menu and just take the alcohol out and figure it out.”

After all, elaborate NA drinks may be the wave of the future. All of the drink aficionados Block Club interviewed said the alcohol-free business is booming — even when it’s not January — and the requests for fancy non-alcoholic cocktails increase every year.

“Since we work so hard on our cocktails, we just want to figure out a way to make them accessible to everyone else,” said Jonah.

For more inspiration, check out a special sober-focused event this month. The sober community Chicago AF is hosting a festive NA Day event Saturday at Loft on Lake, 1366 W. Lake St.

And on Jan. 18, a No I.D. Alcohol-Free Cocktail Competition and Tasting Event will take place at Artifact Events, 4325 N. Ravenswood Ave. Events like these are bound to offer even more creative NA ideas to enjoy for the rest of your Dry January.

---

Listen to the Block Club Chicago podcast: