To ask for your best non-alcoholic drink suggestions?

[WhatWouldKalindaDo]

I am making a real effort to drink less. My alcohol consumption really crept up over lockdown and lead to poor health and me feeling dreadful. I've now been alcohol free for a couple of months and am really proud of this.

However, Christmas is difficult when you don't drink! This will be my first alcohol free Christmas and I'd love to have some suggestions of some enjoyable drinks so I don't feel like I'm missing out.

Thanks!

I really like Belvoir Farms drinks, especially their elderflower presse. I also like a lime and soda. It’s refreshing without being over sweet.

I like non alcoholic beers. They are very similar to the real thing. Becks blue, peroni libretto and San Miguel 0% are my favourites.

We had some m and s non alcoholic sparking wine recently that was nice. Fizz zero or something.

I like the bottle green fizzy drinks, especially the raspberry lemonade.

First of all - well done you. The best thing I ever did in my life was quit drinking. That said, I find the holidays particularly triggering as there are booze adverts on the TV and in supermarkets all over the place and it's easy to believe you're missing out.

I've found Lidl often do alcohol-free gins in their Special Buys aisle and as long as you pair these with ice cold high quality tonics (think Fever Tree or Fentimans) with all your ice and bits in it, it's very hard to tell the difference between that and a "normal" G&T.

Aldi do a 6 pack of alcohol-free Pilsner of you prefer beers. Again, needs to be stone cold.

If you like your fizzies such as Prosecco then try Botanique which you can buy online.

Alcohol-free wine tastes of arse so I struggle to find anything remotely pleasant in that department I'm afraid.

Best of luck and a very Merry Christmas to you! ☺️

Lemon lime and bitters

My friend who doesn't drink always drinks Schloer which has the added bonus of looking a bit like wine if for some reason you don't want to look like you're not drinking alcohol. I do find most non-alcoholic very sweet and sickly so I'll watch this thread with interest for suggestions.

I like Becks Blue as well. And Sainsburys own non alcoholic sparkling wine. I prefer it to nosecco.

I keep meaning to try kombucha do may add that to my Christmas shop.

When I was pregnant I used to drink ginger ale with tonic water and slices of lime. I like the peppery savoury Ness of it. I always had slimline as I don't like sweet drinks either.

Well done! Are you okay with drinks that are trying to taste like their alcoholic counterparts? Just asking as a friend was in the same situation and said she couldn’t enjoy the non-alc wine/beer as it kind of just made her want to drink the proper stuff. If not, here are some interesting lists:

www.esquire.com/uk/food-drink/g34058805/best-non-alcoholic-drinks/
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/food-drink/dry-january-2021-non-alcoholic-drinks-b1780817.html%

If you don’t want those kinds of drinks, a sparkling pressé is refreshing. And give kombucha a few tries, in diff flavours, as it’s got that odd tang to it that makes it a little more interesting than a normal fizzy drink.

Sanbitter. An Italian aperitif, beautiful!

I like to drink fever tree aromatic tonic with ice and lemon or lime. You hardly notice the gin is missing. Since cutting down on alcohol I have become addicted to bottle green elderflower cordial and get through about 4 bottles a week.

Fever Tree elderflower tonic is lovely.
Also, try making some virgin cocktails. Virgin Marys with pickle juice, celery and lots of Tabasco sauce - amazing!

Virgin mojitos - basically lime and soda and ice and fresh mint in the summer.

I find most soft drinks far too sweet

Definitely belvoir. I like their raspberry lemonade and their blueberry and blackcurrant cordial. For fruit juices, granini are great - I love their peach one. Fentimans and bottlegreen do great drinks too.

Imo you can't beat a simple soda water with lime cordial.

I'm not a fan of shloer nowadays, you can really taste the artificial sweetener. But if you are okay with that, they are usually on offer coming up to Christmas.

Thanks for all the great suggestions! Lots to try, and looking forward to it.

evtheria I don't mind drinks that taste like alcohol. Thankfully, I'm not addicted to alcohol, so something that tastes like it doesn't trigger me to drink it, if that makes sense.

Dalston's Ginger Beer

they also do a amazing rhubarb drink - which if fine in a normal glass - but you can seriously think of as celabratory fizz if it's in a chambagne flute.

@WhatWouldKalindaDo Fab - well plenty of exciting things to try here then! I rarely drink but I’ve made a list based off some of these recommendations

Mocktails! My fave that we always have at Christmas is tropical fruit juice/orange juice and lemonade (or sparkling water to make it less sweet/ginger beer if you like that) with a dash of grenadine. Add as much of each as you like - but not too much grenadine as very sweet! The red grenadine looks lovely at Christmas I think.

& the virgin mohitos mentioned above - a few weeks ago I picked up a premixed virgin mohito drink in Aldi. Very very good, with out without alcohol added. Sadly never to be seen again

I like Seedlip, they are non-alcoholic spirits and you make up the drink with tonic water or lemonade etc. It feels a bit more like a proper drink, just without the alcohol. I like the citrus version, and the spice one is nice for winter.

Kombucha - all are not equal though, the River Cottage ones are lovely.
Copenhagen Sparkling Tea is delicious but expensive.
Freixenet.
Order yourself a mixed case of beer from dry drinker and see what you like.
The new Guinness 0.0 is great if you can get hold of it.

Big fan of ginger beer with absolutely tons of ice and lime juice in it. The lime takes the sticky edge off the GB.
However the only GB I can find that isn't full of sweeteners these days is Supermalt or Fentimans ( which isn't fiery enough.)
I miss the Old Jamaica extra fiery

On a separate note, I would be happy to pay extra for full sugar varieties- it's not like I drink tons of them -and most artificial sweetener gives me awful shits. It's the absolute bane of my life that absolutely everything has gone down the no sugar route.

I love an Arnold Palmer. Absolutely delicious!

M&S Fizzero is nice and seems like you’re drinking something sparkling!

I can't vouch for these as I haven't tried them, but spruce-water.com have got a range of things you can just add to water which I have ordered to test for Christmas.

Seedlip with ice and tonic is one of my favourites. I like all the varieties.