Sheep in Wolves Clothing – Mocktails & Me
Ahh the extravagant Cocktail, a thing of beauty and deceit to the regular alcohol drinker and I guess the same thing could apply to the sober warrior.
That’s because, in my experience, whilst cocktails are a nice to have, I never really had a clue what was in them and I didn’t really care so long as it hit the spot if I ever drank them.
However, I generally avoided the Cocktails and here are 4 honest reasons why:
- I drank too fast and there was not enough quantity to sustain my efforts. It was then clear to see who the guzzler amongst the crowd was, but sipping was never my forte.
- I never thought there was enough booze in them anyway, so even if I did drink them at a snail’s pace.I would never get enough down me for my liking. This is likely not true but it’s what I thought at the time.
- Bloody expensive for what they are. Stand by this.
- I would get impatient waiting at the bar for the wannabe Tom Cruise (from Cocktail, it was a movie back in the day) … C’mon I could have skelched 2 pints by now!!
Nowadays, being a Sober Warrior to the death, I still wouldn’t buy a Mocktail (notice I’ve changed the “C” to “M”) if I were out for a meal or having festive drinks with friends.
But at home when entertaining, or for my own personal amusement, well that is a different matter and there is something extremely therapeutic about taking my time over a non-alcoholic drink these days.
Perhaps it’s because I do not feel the impulse to get it down me as fast as possible and move onto the next or perhaps it’s because now, I appreciate all the wonderful things I have in my life and am prepared to give them the time they deserve, I’d say both.
As you will have no doubt noticed there is an influx of different Alcohol-Free spirits and/or Botanicals on the market which is fabulous for folk like me and I am particularly fond of the ones that I can mix with tonic water. When making homemade mocktails there are thousands of different recipes to suit anyone’s need and the best part is you don’t have to use alcohol or the expensive replacements if you don’t want to. The second-best thing is, if you are making them at home you can play around with quantities, ingredients, temperature, posh glasses and even get all scientific because it’s great to experiment. Finally, you can take your time without the binge drinker at the end of the bar giving you evils for taking too long making your Cocktails or Mocktails whilst he impatiently waits for his pint!
Be as reckless or as timid as you like and don’t be afraid to mix things up in the experiment, because a few years ago I would not have dreamt putting cold coffee in tonic and serving it with a slice of lime but yet these days you can even buy it somewhere, aptly named “Cold Brew Tonic”. On that note here is a few of my faves that I will be making during the upcoming festivities and in my next posts I will show you how they are made and what is put into them, both in ingredients and in effort, which in both cases is no big drama. I hope you like the sound of these and maybe you could try and guess what is in them, after all, I just made them up with a little help from google as I went along!
Mulled Not So Obvious (Mulled wine without the wine, but I couldn’t call it just Mulled!)
Before I head off to the kitchen to crack on with these beauty’s I will say that my taste buds have also changed since my drinking days. Take Tonic Water for instance, unless there was an abundance of Gin in it I wouldn’t have liked it, and even then, I never liked the taste, whereas now I absolutely love the stuff and put all sorts of frozen fruit in it and try different brands, in fact it may surprise you to know my top ten. Please be sure to come back and check out my upcoming review on everything tonic.
And finally, depending when you are reading this, I wish you a very Merry Christmas…. Enjoy!
Love to all…Darren