Whether you’re doing Dry January or going sober for good, these are the best mocktail ingredients to keep on hand.
There’s nothing quite like a fancy drink to perk up an evening, even if you’re just binge-watching reality TV on the couch. But sometimes, it’s not worth the hangover. Enter the mocktail. Booze-free beverages have gone beyond the Shirley Temple to become downright tempting drinks in their own right.
Building a mocktail that rivals traditional tipples starts with a base of high-quality, flavorful ingredients. Here are the best non-alcoholic cocktail ingredients to add to your mocktail minibar.
Spindrift is a mocktail mixologist’s best friend. The slightly sweet sparkling beverage has no weird ingredients, just carbonated water and fruit juice. And it comes in a range of flavors that would enhance any virgin drink. Make a killer booze-free Arnold Palmer with Spindrift Half & Half (24 for $17.97), or swap out bitter Campari for Spindrift Cranberry Raspberry (24 for $17.97) for a zero-ABV Americano.Buy Now
Want to give your mocktails an herbaceous kick? Monk’s got you covered with its CBD-infused drinking botanicals. Made with responsibly sourced fruits, spices, and herbs, these 8-ounce elixirs can be mixed into a relaxation-inducing virgin cocktail or served on their own. The sampler includes tantalizing flavors like ginger maple shrub, turmeric lemon, and grapefruit cayenne. Pour them over crushed ice in a sugar-rimmed glass, sip, and enjoy.Buy Now
Even though a warm, spiced drink can take the edge off a cold, alcohol can ultimately make you feel worse. Instead, skip the scotch and ward off uncomfortable symptoms with Aunt Lucy’s Hot Toddy Mix. The mocktail mix is a blend of honey, lemon, and cinnamon in an instant powder that dissolves in hot water to form a soothing sipper. Take that, sniffles!Buy Now
Want to make your mocktails taste every bit as flavorful as a boozy beverage? Pick up this simple syrup collection from Blank Slate Kitchen, a Brooklyn-based company founded by chef Alex Sorenson. The bird’s eye chili syrup is excellent for virgin spicy margaritas or a zesty lemonade when mixed with citrus and seltzer. The palm sugar syrup also makes a fine substitution for rum in a virgin daiquiri or mojito—you’ll never even miss the alcohol.Buy Now
Mocktails shouldn’t just appeal to your palate—they should also be a feast for the eyes. Enter Spirdust, edible shimmer powder you can add to drinks to make them sparkle. The sparkles come in 17 colors, so you can find the perfect shade for any libation. Just a pinch or two of Spirdust will make your virgin drinks twinkle and swirl like the night sky.Buy Now
Looking for a way to make your mocktails more multidimensional? Add a splash of rich, barrel-aged maple syrup from the Runamok Cocktail Collection. Each bottle of maple syrup is infused with a different flavor, such as hibiscus, ginger, or jasmine tea. The syrup can add depth and smoky sweetness to a virgin Bloody Mary, hot toddy, or mai tai. Plus, you can feel good knowing that each syrup is 100 percent organic.Buy Now
Think you need to give up your favorite floral flavors when you’re abstaining from alcohol? Think again—Belvoir Fruit Farms Elderflower Cordial can add that delicate blossom taste typically found in elderflower liqueur to any mocktail. Try it in a virgin martini, gimlet, or strawberry sparkler. Bonus points if you garnish the glass with edible flowers.Buy Now
These nonalcoholic spirits are distilled with botanicals like allspice, citrus, peppercorns, rosemary, thyme, and even hay and oak, and made with as much care as any conventional craft spirit. With the addition of a little tonic, you have a complex cocktail without the alcohol. (You can also buy the trio on Amazon.)Buy Now
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Low-alcohol drinks continue to rise in popularity, and non alcoholic drinks are sure to see a spike in interest for Dry January, but these virgin cocktails, or mocktails, have been around for a long time. Learn about their history and how to make great non alcoholic drinks at home.
A Brief History of Mocktails
As legend has it, when Depression-era child star Shirley Temple was out with her parents, they had cherry-garnished Old Fashioneds…but without the booze.
Stock UpMust-Have Mocktail Ingredients for Great Non-Alcoholic DrinksThe sweet drink that now bears her name has grenadine, some form of soda and, of course, a cherry and is probably one of the more famous mocktails around. The actual word “mocktail” may date back to the 1930s or the 1970s. But since craft cocktail bartenders started catering to liquor-avoiding patrons, it has become ubiquitous. It has not, however, always signified something you’d want to drink. As with vegan options in an omnivore-focused restaurant, mocktails can be poor guests at the bar or table, with little thought given to creativity, balance, or tempting the customer back for more.
The Evolution & Craft of Mocktails
Fortunately for the rest of us, a few fine pros are leading the way to attention-worthy, liquor-free drinks. According to Sahil Mehta, a bartender at Boston’s Estragon and Bar GoGo, “mocktails can be just as creative, just as interesting as regular cocktails.” In fact, he’s had—and made—some that had him thinking, “Why am I drinking alcohol, if things taste this good without it?”
There are two clear roads from theory to mocktail: remake a classic cocktail without the booze, or invent a brand-new nonalcoholic drink.
“Sometimes, I try to [do] a classic cocktail,” Mehta says, “but more often than not, I’m building a taste—or layers and layers of taste.” With daiquiris, Mehta points out, the rum shines through, but sugar and lime juice are just as important. They can become the base of a splendid cocktail without any liquor.
Estragon is a tapas bar. The dishes are small, but flavorful. “Most of our food has salty, sweet, spicy, bitter, and sour tastes,” Mehta says. “I try to do similar things with my mocktails, so there’s a complexity to it.”
Complexity
Taking this from the broad to the narrow, Mehta says, “I try to use complex sweeteners, and not just simple syrup. Whether it’s using things like orgeat or grenadine (not the fake red kind).” Ezra Star, the GM of Boston’s menu-free cocktail lounge, Drink, also uses orgeat in non-alcoholic drinks. “It gives a little bit of body to whatever I’m working with.”
Keep complexity in mind when it comes to sour elements too: “Use verjus, or shrubs, which have both sweetness and acidity. I almost always have three of those going at my bar,” says Mehta, “and they’re all non-alcoholic.”
For bitterness, too, Mehta thinks beyond standard bar products. His ingredients are in many of our kitchen cabinets. “You can use something as tannin-heavy as a green tea, or something deeper: dandelion greens.”
Balance
Star says making an outstanding mocktail is about finding a good balance. An unexpected ingredient helps. “I like to put a little bit of salt in a cocktail, to round out sweetness.” Think about using soda water, which has a hint of salt.
Where salt’s concerned, Mehta would encourage you to think widely. Reach for celery salt, smoked salt, pink salt, rosemary salt, chili lime salt…components that come with inbuilt complexity. Whether you use them in the drink or on the rim of the glass, they’ll bring something unusual and surprising, making an ordinary mocktail remarkable.
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Fresh Ingredients
In contrast with cocktails, Star says making mocktails “is much more like cooking, so if you’ve got raspberries at home, muddled raspberries with syrup, salt, lemon juice, almond, and a good dash of bitters would make a really good mocktail.”
Don’t discount the salad drawer. Star suggests “taking cucumber and vinegar, and making an a la minuteshrub.” Add sweetener (a flavored simply syrup, honey, agave…) and soda water for a well-rounded bubbly drink.
Swoon Zero Sugar Simple Syrup, $11.99 on Amazon
This all-natural sugar-free sweetener is made from monkfruit.
Playing with what’s at hand has entertainment value too. “It’s much more fun for people who are hanging out,” Star says, “when they see you’re picking something from your fridge and doing something unexpected.” When the unexpected is also delicious, your hostly job is done.
Bitters
If you’re okay with just a few drops of alcohol, then bitters round out a drink. Go with Angostura, or consider a craft bitter, such as Cocktail Punk or Hudson Standard. Even without that bartending staple, your mocktails can have your friends asking for recipes, as well as another round. And you can find other bitter elements, like charred herbs, grapefruit peel, and some emerging brands of nonalcoholic bitters or complex alcohol-free mixers like Seedlip, to add that balancing element.
Sanbitter Rosso Soda, $29.99 on Amazon
You can also try this nonalcoholic soda sub for Campari; one reviewer recommends mixing with orange juice for a good nonalcoholic Negroni substitute.
We can’t not include such a classic—but we can (and did) upgrade it so it’s worth drinking even if you’re not underage. The key is to use homemade grenadine, because the store-bought stuff can be cloying (not to mention artificially colored and full of corn syrup); our version is easy to make and tastes great, thanks to unsweetened pomegranate juice, sugar, fresh lemon juice, and a few drops of orange flower water. Combine that with club soda, some freshly squeezed citrus juice, and homemade maraschino cherries (or a high-quality store-bought option like Luxardo cherries) and you have a simple but lovely mocktail indeed. Get our Shirley Temple recipe.
Luxardo Gourmet Maraschino Cherries, 2 jars for $33.75 on Amazon
These dark, lush Italian imports are a far cry from the neon-red maraschino cherries you know from well drinks.
With fresh lime juice, rich coconut milk, and complexity from honey, Smitten Kitchen’s sparkling piƱa colada riff is anything but a teetotaller’s consolation prize. Invest in good pineapple juice, or make your own. It’s a key component; quality will make the drink a winner. Get the Consolation Prize Cucumber-Coconut Mocktail recipe.
From sweetening tea to drizzling over pancakes, you’ll find plenty of purposes for this lavender cardamom simple syrup. Here, it features a sophisticated lavender cardamom fizz. The combination of egg white and club soda gives this a thick meringue. The soda also contributes a touch of salt—not enough for your guests to notice, but enough to elevate this cocktail above even its booziest competitors. Get the Lavender Cardamom Fizz recipe.
Cool, green, and refreshing, this honeydew-basil nojito is jammed with fresh melon juice. Fresh lime and torn basil counter the melon’s sweetness. There’s very little sugar in this drink; if your melon’s ripe enough, then you could get away with none. Put melon balls between layers of ice for a polka-dotted style, or make it easy for yourself and garnish the drinks with melon sticks. Get the Honeydew-Basil Nojitos (Nonalcoholic Mojitos) recipe.
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With fresh strawberry compote, orange juice, and mint, this drink almost passes for a glass of sunrise. The compote needs cooling, so make that part an hour or more ahead. Use plenty of mint in the garnish to give this mocktail a festive look. Get the Strawberry Mocktail recipe.
This cocktail’s visual drama comes from blackberries. The recipe calls for fresh blackberries, but unsweetened frozen berries make this a drink for all seasons. Honey and vanilla warm the fruit’s sharper notes. Strain it through mesh and a coffee filter, and your mocktail will be seed-free. Get the Blackberry Vanilla Mocktail recipe. (Try our Virgin Bramble recipe for something a bit less sweet with more herbal notes.)
Grapefruit kombucha, fresh citrus fruit, and spicy ginger beer give this mocktail its cocktail lounge elegance (and plenty of fizzy kick). A simple sugar and chili powder accented rim adds sweet-spicy-salty shocks to each sip. Get the Citrus Kombucha Mocktail recipe.
The only thing this drink has in common with the Shirley Temple is grenadine. Orgeat and coconut cream contribute a lush (but liquor-free) mouthfeel, while orange, lime, and lemon juice naturally round out the sweetness of orgeat and grenadine. Toss it in a blender with ice, and you have a frosty mocktail to make a daiquiri melt with envy. Get the Rosy Dawn Nonalcoholic Mocktail recipe. (Or if you’re not in the mood for a slushy drink, try our Little Pink Pearl Mocktail recipe, pictured above, which also uses orgeat, in combination with grapefruit juice for a simple sipper that still tastes complex.)
This virgin Pimm’s Cup gets its spices from fresh ginger, ginger beer, and two non-alcoholic wine infusions: red with juniper, anise, allspice, coriander, and grapefruit; white with anise, coriander, juniper, and lemon. Tea gives it a dry side. A helix of cucumber is a dramatic garnish. Nobody will mistake this drink for child’s play. Get our Virgin Pimm’s Cup recipe.
Mocktails move easily into autumn too. This one is ridiculously simple, but tastes divine on a chilly fall day. Just combine fresh squeezed orange juice with ginger beer and sparkling apple juice, plus some frozen cranberries for garnish and a faint hint of balancing bitterness. Get our Autumn Chiller Mocktail recipe.
Take your pick of holiday party mocktails. When the Culinary Institute of America crafts nonalcoholic drinks, it’s certain they’re going to be exceptional. Here, a fresh cranberry smash has brown sugar, mint, and lime; a bubbly pomegranate mocktail has sparkling cider and a garnish of fresh pomegranate seeds; and eggnog gets ample flavor from nutmeg cloves, cinnamon, and maple syrup. Buy dark maple syrup, which has a more complex taste. You won’t miss spirits at all. Get the Holiday Mocktails recipes.
This zero-proof take on the classic G&T involves infusing nonalcoholic white wine with juniper berries, coriander, anise seed, and lemon to mimic the botanical complexity of gin. In about three hours, you’ll be ready to mix it with a splash of tonic and a squirt of citrus. Get our Virgin Gin and Tonic recipe. (You can also use the nonalcoholic white wine infusion along with a nonalcoholic red wine infusion for a Virgin Negroni recipe.)
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The best guacamole keeps it simple: just ripe avocados, salt, a squeeze of lime, onions, chiles, cilantro, and some chopped tomato. Serve it as a dip at your next party or spoon it on top of tacos for an easy dinner upgrade.
Caviar vs roe: What’s the difference? They’re both fish eggs, true, and to some, that makes them equally icky—while to caviar connoisseurs, there is simply no comparison. “Caviar” refers to the small, glistening eggs of sturgeon, ancient, smooth-skinned, paddle-nosed fish, of which there are 27 species, while “roe” is a term that encompasses all other fish eggs. Caviar even gets its own holiday: National Caviar Day on July 18. But what makes it so much more special than other fish eggs?
Why Is Caviar So Expensive?
The reason is twofold. First, wild sturgeon species everywhere are threatened due to overfishing, pollution, and general habitat destruction. On top of that general scarcity, it takes the female fish several years to reach maturity and begin producing eggs—one of the reasons that even farmed sturgeon caviar, which is now the most widely available option, still isn’t cheap. Tech Insider can tell you more:
How Did Caviar Become Such a Delicacy?
As to why people are willing to pay exorbitant prices for any fish eggs, well, caviar has a lot of historical cachet—although, like lobster, it wasn’t always considered a luxury ingredient. There was a time when caviar passed for peasant food, and caviar from American sturgeons was so plentiful during the 19th century that it was allegedly served in saloons like nuts or pretzels—a salty snack bars could afford to give away for free, or nearly so, especially since it made patrons order more ale to quench their increased thirst.
Treat It RightFancy Fish Eggs 101: How to Eat Caviar ProperlyClearly, plenty of people have always enjoyed the briny taste of cured fish eggs (all caviar is cured—that is, salted and aged—in order to preserve it and improve its flavor, though the best quality is considered “malossol” which means they’re only lightly salted), as well as the way they pop on the tongue under gentle pressure to release their rich, oily juices.
Many records mention Aristotle writing about caviar in the 4th century, when its arrival at the banquet table would be heralded with trumpet fanfare. But it was the Russian tsars that are really responsible for the high-status mark it still bears today. Caviar harvested from wild sturgeon in the Caspian Sea (an inland body of water bordered by parts of Russia and Iran, as well as Kazahkstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan) became the most highly prized kind, and according to Petrossian, in the caviar business since 1920: “Exiled Russian royalty, intellectuals and aristocrats who fled the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917” and settled in Paris brought a demand for quality caviar with them and helped spread the fad throughout Europe.
The most famous (and expensive) kinds or grades of Caspian Sea caviar were historically Beluga (large, buttery, silver-gray to black eggs from the largest species of sturgeon, which is now critically endangered); Osetra (slightly smaller eggs, more brown in color, and with a nuttier flavor); and Sevruga (smaller still, stronger-tasting, and with a gray tint)—but there are many other types, like golden Sterlet and Kaluga (which is largely farmed in China, and seems to be becoming the new Beluga, capable of fetching around $500 per ounce). With so many different types available—and with specific origins often obscured by marketing and labeling—choosing which caviar to buy can be confusing; it largely comes down to trusting the brand, or at least the retailer.
Marky's Imperial Osetra Caviar, 9 ounces for $1,615.95 at Walmart
No, that number is not a typo (and neither is the retail location).
So many! Besides sturgeon caviar, some of the most popular—and far more affordable—types of roe include salmon (sometimes called “red caviar”), those large, bright orange, luscious beads often found in sushi; trout roe (sometimes smoked); and tobiko (the tiny, crunchy, brightly colored eggs often found on sushi, harvested from flying fish and variously dyed black with squid ink, green with wasabi, red with beets, or yellow with yuzu). You’ll also find jars of relatively cheap fish eggs labeled caviar, but they’ll always include the type of fish they come from: paddlefish caviar (or spoonbill caviar); lumpfish caviar (which comes in red and black varieties); hackleback (or American sturgeon) caviar; capelin caviar; and so on.
Marky's Hackleback Black American Sturgeon Caviar, 1.75 ounces for $71.95 on Amazon
Hackleback is true sturgeon caviar at a more affordable price.
Tarama is carp or cod roe that’s often smoked in addition to being cured. Similarly, bottarga is salt-cured tuna or mullet roe that’s been pressed and dried (so it’s shaved onto dishes rather than spooned on).
Sardinian Gold Bottarga, $20.99 on Amazon
Shave over pasta, salads, or vegetables to finish your dish.
Moving away from finfish, while they’re not harvested commercially in order to be sold on their own, shrimp roe and spot prawn roe in particular are often prized by diners when they come included on the shellfish. Lobster roe is often made into a buttery sauce, but just as often discarded by diners; crab roe can also be consumed, most traditionally in she-crab soup, though it’s difficult to come by. And sea urchin roe, known as uni, is a more custardy, uniform substance compared to the discrete, popping spheres of other roe.
And while not actually caviar or roe, you can even find “vegan caviar” these days. These briny little beads are seaweed-based, with a milder taste than but similar texture to the real stuff.
Caviart Vegan Caviar, 3.5 ounces for $9.95 on Amazon
Whether you decide to dip your toe (or mother-of-pearl spoon) into the rareified—and priced-to-match—stuff from sturgeon, or explore the more affordable options in the wide world of fish eggs, here are some ways to use caviar (and roe) besides nibbling it on its own.
The miniature pancakes known as blini are a traditional accompaniment to caviar, but we make ours with cornmeal instead of the more common buckwheat. Purists may wish to skip the crĆØme fraĆ®che and salmon, especially if they have a really expensive tin of fish eggs on hand. Get our Cornmeal Blini with Caviar recipe.
The large, relatively soft pop of salmon roe makes egg salad a little more sophisticated (and interesting, both texture- and flavor-wise). Get the Tarragon Egg Salad with Salmon Roe recipe.
Smoked salmon mousse is simple, but piped onto cucumber rounds and topped with caviar, it makes a perfectly elegant cocktail party nibble, suitable for whatever quality of caviar your taste (and budget) dictates. Get our Smoked Salmon Mousse with Caviar recipe.
Oysters are another iconic and divisive oceanic ingredient, so why not pair them with caviar? There’s also a hint of ham hock broth here, so this is sort of a surf and turf option. Get our Oysters with Caviar and Cucumber recipe.
Tobiko is primarily used as a brightly colored garnish that also adds a little salt and crunch, so try using it on homemade sushi. (And since you’ll probably have some left over, if you’re into eggs on eggs, try a tobiko omelet recipe with the rest.) Get the California Roll recipe and the Dragon Roll recipe.
OK, this one’s a fake-out—what looks (and pops) like caviar is actually the acidic, spherical flesh of finger limes, also called caviar limes for obvious reason. The bad news is, they can be difficult to obtain, but even so, they’re still less expensive than actual caviar! Get the Prawns with Nasturtium Leaves and Finger Lime recipe.
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