One of the biggest challenges with quitting or cutting back on drinking is figuring out what to drink when you do want to celebrate or feel special (see previous posts on this topic).
If you’re more into strong beverages like martinis, you’ll have a bit more trouble, but there are a lot of substitutes for sweeter, lighter drinks.
We’ve taken a look at a few popular drinks and figured out the tricks for making something like them without alcohol. Enjoy!:
Daiquiri: These can be paid with fruit (strawberry, mango), sugar, and lime juice, but the missing ingredient is rum, of course. The trick here is rum extract. It tastes like rum but comes in low- and no-alcohol forms.
Margarita: These are similar to the daiquiris (requiring fruit, ice, sugar, and lime juice), but the missing ingredient is tequila. Most recipes also use orange juice, and if you really want the tequila taste, you can try a non-alcoholic tequila extract (usually used for baking).
Bellini/mimosa: The key here is to replace the champagne with something else sparkling like ginger ale. Otherwise, you need some sugar, lemon juice, and fruit juice (cranberry, peach, strawberry, ).
Aperol Spritz: The key with an aperol spritz is non-alcoholic bitters like SanBitters. You can add lemonade and/or soda to add the familiar fizzy, citrusy effect.
Sangria: Non-alcoholic sangria can have lots of the same flavors. Beside fresh fruit, adding carbonated water and/or spices like cinnamon can help. But the key is what fruit juices to use. Multiple recipes recommend apple juice or apple cider, orange juice, lemon juice, and grape juice.
We hope this is helpful as you figure out your plan to quit or cut back on drinking, and encourage you to explore the Drinker’s Helper app to help along the way.
