No- or low-alcohol cocktails are getting some serious attention these days. In this classic episode, we explore the science, history, and culture of ‘mocktails’ with special guest Julia Bainbridge, whose new book 'Good Drinks' explores the subject.
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Hello, and welcome to save a production of iHeart Radio. I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we have a classic episode for you about non alcoholic cocktails. Yes, a mocktail our as we called it. Indeed, yes, because we could not help ourselves. Um and this is an honor of the fact that um Our interviewee for that episode one, Julia Bainbridge, was talking in that interview um in in back in May about a book that she was starting to work on about non alcoholic cocktails. And she has come out with that book. Yes, it's so cool. It's it feels like the circle of podcaster book life. Um yeah, because she was talking about it in this interview and she was still work shopping names for it and it's just really you oh no, rewarding to see it come to fruition. Oh absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. The book is called Good Drinks subtitle alcohol Free Recipes for when You're not drinking for whatever reason. And uh and yeah we are. We're so excited about it. Yeah, it's a wonderful title, by the way, Yes, yes, and uh yeah available now if you're looking to try some new things during this time, which I I absolutely have been and been really enjoying and this is a great resource for you. It is. Yeah, you know, perhaps especially now during these are COVID times. Um, you know, it's it's a time of reflection, I think for a lot of people and um, and reflecting on you know, what our habits were in the before times and what they are now and how you know, what what we want to go back to when we can, and what we maybe want to change up about ourselves in our world. And so and maybe drinking less is on your list of things to do, or maybe you don't drink at all anyway and you want a good drink. Yeah, yeah, um so yeah, so uh so I propose um that we go ahead and get into this episode. Um, and then we'll talk afterwards a little bit more about how the book turned out. Does that sound good? Annie, Yes, I concur Lauren excellent. All right, Well then we shall let previous Annie and Lauren take it away. Hello, and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Anny Rees and I'm Lauren voc Obam. And today we're talking. We're talking about non alcoholic beverage concoctions. Yes, there's no good name for them, there is not. Um, most commonly on news called the mocktail um. They go buy a lot of a lot of other names, which we're going to talk about Morna and I love talking about all the weird names for things, um, but we probably will be using mocktail ah throughout most of this Yes, yeah, it's the easiest. Yeah, but listeners, if any of you have a good idea for what it should be called, yeah, there's a space that needs to be filled here. We also have a guest in this episode. Oh yes, Julia Bainbridge came and spoke with this. She did, and you might know her as the host of the Lonely Hour podcast are through her work in the food industry, She's done a lot of writing and she is currently um working on a book about the mocktail um, which we are very much looking forward to. Yes, and we're gonna let her talk more about all the stuff that she has done at the end of this here podcast episode. Yeah, yes, yes, yes to interview later. But but first, mocktails what is it? For some reason, I think of like a parakeets and like the tail on the back, like flaring out. I don't know why one cockatoo, two cocka four, I don't know there's a song in there that has a mocktail in it, Mary Kate Nashley song, because that's all I know. Apparently my brain is just Mary Kate Nashley songs and donuts. I love the sheer number of times that Mary Kate Nashley have come up in this podcast. I know I'm growing increasingly embarrassed by it, but at the same time I'm gonna double down. Now own it, dude, own it. I absolutely we'll own it. Not okay, So it is not a parakeets tail. It is a oh, a virgin cocktail. I forgot about that non alcoholic cocktail or virgin cocktail. Um, it's a mixed beverage of the non alcoholic variety. Is your point zero percent a baby as stands for alcohol by volume? Yes, or hypothetically Hypothetically some some non alcoholic cocktails are technically low alcoholic cocktails with less than zero point five percent alcohol content um, and apart from being something pregnant women can enjoy. Or for people who have struggled with alcohol before the designated driver, maybe a medication that's incompatible with alcohol, maybe you've got an allergy. Or for people of business meetings looking to have one alcoholic drink but not get wasted after that. Um some countries or for some religions, alcohol of any kind is prohibited. It's for a lot more people than you might think at first. Absolutely, yes, Oh and children, children too. Yes. I can tell you a lot of friends of mine would have loved something other than a Shirley Temple to order a restaurants as children. Absolutely. I think by the time I was thirteen and really hitting the bar in Mitzvah circuit like I was, Shirley Temples were already too sweet for me. But you wanted the experience. You were like, I'm so grown up. I am thirteen. Look at this dress that I am wearing. I had my hair done today. I need to carry around a glass like Lauren Bicall, because that's what adulthood is. Yeah, carrying around glasses with the dress that it's done. I'm not math and dirty. I never I never ordered as Shirley tim Full No, No, I just wasn't. I'm not. I wasn't into sweet things then. I'm not into sweet things too much now of the drink variety. Give me the aforementioned donut any day. But my friends were so excited every time they saw them on a menu, and I think to this day they would be. Honestly, I'm still enjoy them. I Oh, I haven't had one in a very very long time. Okay, homework. Uh. If you think of a traditional beverage menu, traditionally it's been cocktails, beer, wine, and then a smushed list of soda offerings. Oh sure, yeah, like like we have Coca Cola products or we have pepsi products and that's it, right, that's all it says exactly. And as far as um craft cocktails have increased in popularity among bartenders and consumers, so too has the mocktail, the craft mocktail, perhaps because bartenders have all these syrups and tinctures and fizzy drinks at their disposal for cocktails, so it just makes sense to have offerings for those looking for a well bounced drink minus the alcohol and you know, just something kind of nicer than your Coca cola, a little more exciting. Perhaps you're looking to celebrate to Yeah, it just makes sense to me. Um. Oh, and there's even their eyes of Sober happy hours. Yeah. Um, I was reading about them. They seem that seemed pretty fun. To me, and I had that thought the other day when we were at a work happy hour and just how difficult it might be if you don't enjoy alcohol, and so many of these events are so based around our ahol. Absolutely, yeah, So it'd be great to have more of these offers an option. Yeah. There's also along those lines lots of low or no alcohol beers or malt beverages, plus similar low alcohol wines and even de spirited spirits on the market, which is sort of a side quest to our topic today, but I did want to mention it, especially as these products might be useful as part of a mocktail maker's back bar. Yes. Um, And even though several mock tails are based on the alcoholic version, simply omitting the alcohol from a recipe is generally a bad practice. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, because you need to consider the ratio. Um, what do you replace the alcohol with. It's a strong flavor, You're gonna want something there. Um. Sparkling water is an easy enough in astitute for vodka. That's a good starting place. Yeah. Um. But I do I have to say I like the nameplay of mocktails. The no Hito Cuddles on a beach that light and drizzly, dark and stormy, light and drizzly. I love it. Um. There there are lots of other ways to make a nonalcoholic cocktail replicate the flavor experience of an alcoholic one, though, Like just just think about what's happening in your mouth when you sip an alcoholic beverage, or if you haven't had one, come along with me on this journey. Um. The alcohol is going to set off a particular taste receptor that reports both physical heat, um and also chemical spice. That's the burning sensation of booze. But it also happens with stuff like capsacan or ginger or peppercorns. There's also an astringent or drying sensation, the same way that lemons and lots of berries, vinegars and other tart acidic foods have. And there might be some tannins in there, and in the case of like wine or stuff like that, which create an extra layer of a stringency, as do tease and coffee. If the product was aged in wood barrels, either charred or plane, it might have picked up some particular flavor compounds from that, like a vanilla or smoke or kind of a cherry almond sort of thing. It might contain carbon dioxide, bubbles, soda, water and other soft drinks indeed do it could have a smooth or creamy kind of mouth feel, either from the ingredients themselves or from the bacteria or yeasts that went into the fermentation process. And stuff like kombucha can contain similar bacteria yeast poop products. Or adding an egg or just the yolk or the white to a shaking cocktail can give you some of that silk. There might be some bitterness similarly, which you can get from herbs like rosemary, sage or time, or from the oils and citrus peels, or from spices like card mom, and sweetness from any remaining sugars post fermentation. And y'all know that there are no end of sweet juices and sugary concoctions on the market, no end. And those are just like some starter parallels. There are tons and tons of foods and products out there that that replicate these flavor sensations, and they're ready for the replication. Yes, yes, so that's our basic overview of the version cocktail, the mockta um. But we do have a little bit of history, especially famous mock tails out there for you. Yes, but first we have a quick break for a word more sponsor and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. The ancestor of the cocktail is something we've talked about before, the soda Shop. Yeah, if you want more info on that, we we have a whole episode for you. We do. And another thing that we'll have to do a whole episode on maybe probably is those low to no alcohol beverages. And these have roots in the small beers of Europe going way way way back, but production began in earnest in the United States during Prohibition UM. The law prevented sales at beverages above at zero point five alcohol bi volume levels, so a number of breweries converted to creating this stuff rather than shut down entirely. Uh. But it wasn't great generally. This was just like light beer with the ethanol heated out of the fermented malt, which really flattens the flavor. Yeah, the heating process is not good for all of those delicate aroma compounds. They're so delicate. The belief to be first mocktail is one that we just mentioned and you've probably heard of before that the Shirley Temple. If you've never had one. It's most commonly a mixture of ginger ale, grenadine, a cherry, uh, and maybe some lemon as garnish. And I've never had one. I just could tell I wouldn't like it. And yes, it was named after child actress Shirley Temple. As per usual, multiple restaurants and hotels bartenders claimed to have claimed to have invented this one for Temple when she visited with her parents. Temple herself, who became Temple Black, once asserted the drink was created at the Brown Derby restaurant of Hollywood in the nineteen thirties and that she was not involved. We just talked about this restain, didn't we. Yeah, it looks like a Derby. It looks like a Derby hat. It looks looks like a big, big brown Derby hat. Yeah. I got a good chuckle out of that picture. We need to go. Yeah. Field trips Field trips all around the Royal Hawaiian Resort, and Wakiki lays claim to it as well, purportedly naming it in honor of their frequent famous guest. Another restaurant, Chasen and Beverly Hill, says they were the first ones to whip us up for Temple's tenth birthday. Temple allegedly went to court twice to prevent soda companies from bottling a Shirley Temple. Um, and she was not a big cocktail mocktail for children fans. She was afraid it was going to inspire lead to Yeah, what's that called a good gateway? A gateway, gateway mock taale, a gateway mocktail. A few other celebrities have mocktails named after them. You've got the Roy Rogers, named for the famous teetotaler actor Singer. Is a concoction of Kola, grenadine and cherries, and since it is similar to the Shirley Temple, it's sometimes called the Shirley Temple Black her married name. The origin is unknown, and it's often called the boys version of the Shirley Town because cola is so manly and it's not it's it's very gendered. I'm okay share whatever. Always Um. There's the Arnold Palmer, which is a half and half mixture of lemonade and iced tea. The golfer claimed to make this drink at home for himself, but sometime in the nineties sixties, someone overheard him ordering at a bar this drink a bar a bar and pulps rings, and the person asked the bartender for that palma drink, and old Arnie Solid has to make some cash, and he allowed the Arizona Beverage Company to use his name to make a bottled version. Huh yeah. Mocktails surge in popularity in the nineteen eighties with all of those sugary premixes we've talked about with cocktails absolutely. By the turn of the twenty one century, total consumption of alcohol worldwide was falling, and in two point two billion liters of non alcoholic beer were sold. That's five and eighty million gallons, which was up from just five years previous in two thousand and seven. Part of this rise in non alcoholic multi beverage sales is that the technology and process for creating them has improved. Burgers are working with yeasts that are slower to convert sugar to alcohol, but that's still impart other flavors to the product, and vacuum processing can pull the ethanol out of fermented products at much lower temperatures, preventing damage of those flavor molecules and reverse osmosis can do it at even lower temperatures. Still, oh, reverse osmosis. And these days, with the rise and handmade cocktails and the focus on health and mindfulness that some people are ridiculous. There are all kinds of guides and tricks and products out there to make tasty non alcoholic cocktails. And okay to talk about all that. Um, we're going to have our our guest, Julia Bainbridge in just a moment. But first one more quick break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor. And now can we do can we do a guest segment transition? I believe we can. I think we have the technology. Heck, and we are here with Julia Bainbridge. Thank you so much for being with us. Julia, you're having me, yes, And can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Yes? I am in an editor and a writer, mostly about food, but about some other stuff too, like feelings and what not. Feelings wood does give me feelings, that's true. But I'm the host, creator, and producer of a podcast called The Lonely Hour, which is an exploration of loneliness and solitude. But it's not a bummer. Um, at least that is my cocktail party line. But back to the food stuff. I've been an editor of an Appetite and most recently Atlanta magazine. UM. And I've written some stuff for The Washington Post and Cutting Nest, Traveler and Solver and stuff like that. UM. And I'm about to start research on a book all about non alcoholic cocktails and other non alcoholic drinks, a whole book. Yes, uh where is enough to say, Yeah, that's that's really exciting for it for a number of reasons. What's the mocktail landscape like these days? It's still a pretty nascent category, but there's definitely movement there. Um. More and more bartenders are carving out space for non alcoholic drinks on their beverage menus. And then we're products on the market too. So seed Lip I don't know if you heard of this um. Seed Lip is the world's first distilled non alcoholic spirit. UM. It was launched by this guy, ben Um. I think his last name is Branson, a British guy. UM. And there's Sound, which is a brand making sparkling tease. UM and some new product called kin Tonic that's made with botanical extracts and it's being marketed as an alcohol alternative. Um. I'm trying to get my hands on the bottle of that. I haven't yet, but um, it's just we see this happening. It's definitely growing, um, and I think we're only going to see this category continue to grow and Strengthen. There's the rate of decline in global alcohol consumption is accelerating. Um. Yeah, the global market for alcoholic drinks shrunk by one point three percent in And I know that sounds really small, but compared with an average rate of point three in the previous five years, it's pretty significant. Wow. Uh what do you think is driving that that rise in popularity? Yeah, there's this is it's like a confluence of so many things. UM. So I'm sorry for the long answer here. I mean the first thing that comes to mind is the waning taboo around substance abuse issues. Um, and so sober people are less I think about like in my mom's era, the conversations around alcoholism and drug addiction whatnots just like a totally different landscape today than it was then. So so were people are less and less ashamed. Um to be so, and then because our palates are also more sophisticated, Like you can look to any mass market food magazine to see the global ingredients that are now assumed to be found in readers local supermarkets. So you know, to find evidence of that, like we see IRFA, you know, and all these um strange things that you actually can find locally. Um So we're we're expecting more. Um So a juice isn't going to cut it anymore for these people who want to not drink alcohol. Um. And so the industry is really beginning to answer to that rising demand with more thoughtful, multiple component drinks that don't have alcohol in them. Um. And then I think to speaking of the industry, like a growing number of bartenders are also drinking less or not at all. So there's um Jack McGarry at the Dead Rabbit in New York. There's Jaron rive Us at Tipo, and Jim Karns who has the happiest hour and slowly surely I think also in New York. Um they've both been really outspoken about their sobriety. So again the kind of lack of um or the waning shape around talking about it. Um So, then they're the millennials, like anything driving trends today, So um, I was reading this piece by the Wall Street Journal just published in March about the twenty some things who are embracing clean living as a way to find balance to mid today's global uncertainty. So um. The journal dubbed this group the clean lifers, writing that they revel in dodging the indulgences of their elders, like a new temperance. Yeah, like like like temperance, but in a fun way. Yeah, with your sense. Um. Yeah, So of course you know this group is shaping consumer behavior and um, that euromonitor, that market research firm. Um, they did some research and in the notes they said, this group feels they can make a difference. This influences their spending choices. So it's more about saying no no to alcohol, no to unhealthy habits, no to animal based products, and increasingly nod to measured or uninformed spending. Um. And then there's just like learning to have restraint. Like what yeah, I mean we had this wonderful resurgence of golden era cocktail culture, right, this was you know, with speakeasy style bars. Um. This all started to kind of effortvests like ten to fifteen years ago. Um. And now so we all know what a Negroni or a Manhattan is, um. And we also know the punch that they pack, you know, um those yeah, um, so you have one, maybe two of those, and it's kind of game over. So um, where to go next? You know? I love bunappet Editor at large Andrew Nolton. Um. He wrote an essay called a Short History of My long Drinking life. It was in the October Seen issue. UM, and he said, I drink less, but I drink better. And it's because I've learned to respect drinking and the craft of it, the camaraderie of it, um, and the importance of it in my life. I don't want to screw up that relationship. So he's just put some rules in place for himself to be able to enjoy drinking but not overdo it. Um. And that just wanted James Beard Award. That's great. Yeah, yeah, especially. I mean we just went on a field trip to Kentucky to kind of travel a little bit of the Bourbon Trail and visit some distilleries and some breweries. And I think we counted it, and we sampled over thirty beers in three days. Uh, and most of those were tasting pores, you know, maybe like three ounces, but and and we were sharing them, but oh absolutely, Like our bodies were so angry at us. And it's so easy when you're in this industry to have that pressure to try everything and to you know, just to be able to speak about it or to have the experience. Yeah, I mean we're I feel like with this rise in the mindfulness movement, we're being more mindful about what we consume on a number of different levels. Like even if people don't have a allergy to gluten, they're thinking, oh, I feel kind of bloated when I eat too much gluten, so I'm going to reduce that intake. Yeah, maybe I should eat a vegetable that isn't wheat. Yeah right right, Um, so kind of the same thing. Like I have plenty of friends who aren't sober and don't a goal with substance abuse issues. But they've removed alcohol for you know, dry newariaes of thing notcohol, to kind of reset for January, and everybody reports back just saying I felt so good. And so this is now part of their practice where maybe two months a year they don't drink just because it feels good. Yeah, have you done any research into the history of a non alcoholic mixed drinks and if so, Um, how has the scene changed over time? Yeah, I mean, like in terms of recent history, as we were saying, like, things have definitely gotten a lot more sophisticated in terms of what restaurants and bars are offering non drinkers, Like ten even five years ago, you'd find you know, those tiky derivative sugar bomb drinks swell Bucks for basically juice um and sour mix. Never forget the sound. Oh yes, never forget um, but like with no nuance or herbal or bitter edge. And that's changing as we're talking about. And from what I've learned talking to bartenders about this category, like it's not a loss for them, like mocktails, like cringe every time I say that word, But it's just that that you yes, one word thing to say. Montel's allow bartenders to play with kind of herbal implant based ingredients that would have been off limits before. Because if you think about how you build a cocktail, it always starts with that base spirit and that's a strong flavor, and then you build the rest of the components around that. So remove it and there's all this like flavor real estate to play with. You know, you can use pine and birch and all these things that are strong themselves that may have competed with the spirit before. So it's kind of exciting. Like I see a lot of people, a lot of bartenders getting jazzed buy mocktails. Um. Yeah. But if if we're going to further back, you mentioned temperance drinks before. So like the temperance era, Britain was rapidly industrializing in the eighteen hundreds and there was this rise in heavy drinking UM that went along with that, and so the government tried to straighten things out by putting pressure on people to drink more responsibly or not at all. Um. So temperance drinks were born, and I for the sense I get is that they they were kind of about having health been fits. They were temperate strengths. Specifically, we're like you would have ginger because that's good for soothing colds or from into dandelion roots, serment to detoxify um. And that kind of sounds familiar with what I'm seeing now, Like I'm thinking of abc V, which is a Geen George restaurant in um in New York and the beverage menu has a category called Vibrations. Now, I know it sounds a little bougie, a little bit, a little bit wou um, but they're all meant to influence you in some way. They call them like restorative tonics. And there's one called to Elevate, for example, and that has St. John's ward and rose and black currant in it. UM. I haven't tested them out yet, but I will report back. Yeah, oh yeah, please ye posted that. UM. Do you have any favorites or any recipes you'd recommend. Yeah, I like tart flavors, So I like a like switch ales or shrubs. So switch is made with usually apple cide or vinegar, water and ginger um. And then they're shrubs or syrups that are made from fruit and um preserved with vinegar and you can just mix that with sparkling water and have kind of a refreshing but pungent drink. UM. If you got about up at their spinoff website, healthy ish Um, and you search for non alcoholic drinks, you'll get like a bunch of sodas and agua fresca's, and that's kind of a good place to start. I think, um, how do you how do you balance the flavors out when you're dealing with when when you take away that main booze punch. Yeah, it's it's a good question, and it's it's tricky. Um, As I'm doing research for this book, like that seems to be the thing that most bartenders say is the hardest to achieve. Um. But I guess, like anything, you know, you just have to taste and tweet to your liking. Like most home cooks are likely going to be working with store bought juices right when they're making any drinks at home, and that means they're going to have something that's sweet yea, so you can send it out with some sparkling water. You can balance it with something tart or bitter or herbal. I think you really just have to get in the kitchen and are behind the bar and play. Yeah. Uh. Do do you have any really strange sounding combinations that you have found that really work? Yes? I mean, and I didn't think they would work, but they do. Like this Mike Dtota, I think that's how you say his last name, Tauta Toto. Sorry, Mike at the Bonnie in a Storia, he makes sistern called The Billows and Thieves, and it has great fruit juice and cold brewed coffee, both which I thought was going to be like way too bitter on bitter, but it ends up making sense to the palate for whatever reason that I can't explain. Maybe we have to ask Harold McGee about the chemistry of that. But and then Mike kind of smooth it out with like a cardamommy cinnamon syrup. Um. Just just go trust me, it really is good. I never would have thought. I mean, I've heard of cold brewed coffee um in drinks, you know, I've heard cold freud coffee with like some sparkling water and a little lemon peel um, which I guess is the same idea, right, Like the lemon rind is bitter and you have that little bit of citrusy. But you know, a couple of pounds of grape frutjuice is another thing. And I really did think it would work, but it does. And he's also i'd say Mike is also really into salting cocktails um, and so like in that one The Billows and Thieves, he mixes in a smoked sea salt um and it sounded strange to me, but I don't know, I don't know why it should have. I mean, salt elevates our food and intensifies the flavors in whatever we cook. So it does the same thing to drinks like and it's and it's not like we don't use salt in some cocktails, like salted rams on a margarita or salt in a bloody mary, right right, So this is just more kind of mixed in. And so next time you make a da gary for yourself at home, make one with salt in the mix and one without, and taste some side beside. I promise you will notice the difference that the best kind of homework. Can um, popular alcoholic drinks be replicated with non boozy products or is it usually better to start? Yeah, I mean you'll have varying opinions on this, I mean they can. And in fact, there's a book coming onto the market soon. UM. It's called Clean and Dirty Drinking, and the concept is to provide two versions of each recipe like means alcohol and a dirty with alcohol. UM. And that's by Um, a pretty well respected bartender in Los Angeles, Like I have no doubt that she UM will do that. Well, but I have to admit I'm less interested in that, like I have, um, a little less experience trying to muscle a cocktail into something non alcoholic. Um, and I do. I think it'd be tricky because the cocktail again starts with that base spirit and then you're building other components around that flavor to balance it out. So when you remove that base spirit, you're starting with a completely different canvas. Um. But I really I want this. I want this category to sort of like exists on its own and stand tall on its own without sort of you know again, that word mocktail implies that it's trying to be something else when these are these are fully formed beverages in their own right. Yeah. Oh yeah, um, I was. I was just reminded of of how much I prefer meat substitutes that aren't like chicken with an apostrophe somewhere in the word, like if it's just tempted like that's that's yeah, it doesn't need to taste like anyway. And we're over the I think most of us see that now. Um, So maybe we'll get over that hump with this too. Oh I hope. So it sounds complicated though, do you if someone is interested in starting to play with this at home, like is it going to take a lot of time and money or or are there kind of products that they can start using to to build their base. Yeah, I mean definitely there are products out there, and every increasing amount of products like we mentioned before. But but you know, like any category of drinks, there are various commitment levels here, right, So sure you can smoke some apples using wood chips, you know, and whip that into something complicated and they use that example because someone in Denmark actually does this. But you know, you can also make a big batch of some kind of drinking vinegar like the switch alser shrubs we were talking about, and have it on hand, you know, for a couple of weeks in the fridge to mix with water and play around with. So I think, you know, it just depends. Um. In fact, I think again, if this book happens, well, um, I kind of want to have like a stamp on each recipe that is about commitment level, like from one to five. This is like how involved you need to get or not, because I know, like I guess you could read the recipe and get a sense of that, but when you come home for the end like a cocktail. It's punctuating the end of the day. You don't need this for sustenance. You want it because it's a joy or a pleasure. Um. And yeah, you're on wonding and so it's usually about what you're craving. You think, like, you know, do I want salty and cold martini? Do I want something kind of warm? Um? And you want it pretty immediately um or maybe one day you do for whatever happened in your day previous to that, you have the energy. I want people to be able to like see immediately um. What's required of them to make whatever drink? So um commitment level one to five, I guess speaking of commitment level, uh there there there are lots of bars that are experimenting with this, but there are lots that are perhaps not. So. If you are looking for a non alcoholic drink and you're out somewhere, is there something that's easy to order for a bartender who might not be like, be like, what shot of whiskey? Yeah? Bitters and soda? You know, I mean, your average die bar likely has some kind of bitter soda water and a lime wedge. If you're lucky or if you want one, and you know, and it's fizzy and blush toned and a whole lot more interesting than a glass of water coke. So um, I think, like, yes, even in dive bars, Uh, you don't have to feel like a second class You're I. That's one that I order, honestly all the time. Kind of settles your tell me a little and it's nice and it's so bitter, and I personally bitter is my favorite flavor, so it makes me really happy. And I guess there are bidders if you're truly sober. That's a tricky one because bidders do have alcohol in them. And even once you're you know, usually using an eye dropper or just dashing in a couple, So once you have it mixed with a you know, a bunch of bounces of water, it's really trace amounts of alcohol. But again, technically, if you've been through a program and you're trying to drink at all, that's not going to cut it worth mentioning. Yeah, or religiously speaking, you you do not consume alcohol right for whatever reason. But um, I know one of your questions was about like products at home, there are some glycerin based Um, bidders are coming onto the market and those don't have alcohol in them. So, um, I think like bidders is something I would recommend people to like start sucking their bars with if they want to play around at home. And you can do that even if you're um truly a non drinker, you know, right, there's also been a rise in UM in like drinking vinegars like cocha and stuff like that, or not that that's a parallel one to one kind of thing. But would that be a good base for trying to play around with non alcohol? Yeah? Absolutely, I mean that would take the place of, um, the shrub or the switcher we were talking about before. Like Andy Ricker at pop Pock he has this line of like pre batched drinking vinegars and it's great. I mean, you can just put that with some sparkling water and call it a day, or you can sort of build a multiple component drink with that. Um, I don't know yet what that would look like. When I'm about to do a lot of in a drinking on the road report back, absolutely gonna get what can can mocktails be paired with food? How does how does that whole thing? Unfortunately, guys, this is another one I don't have a great answer to. But yeah, I mean, yes they can, I don't. I don't totally know how yet. Like, that's something I definitely want to focus on in this book because they're countless resources for how to pair beer, wine, and cocktails with food and not so for this category of drinks. Um And I really want readers to be able to entertain a crowd of non drinkers, whether they themselves drink or not. Um So, I want to have a little guide to sort of flavor pairings. Um So again, I'll report back because I take yeah, no, I mean it's something that I've been thinking about because I think the cocktails pair really poorly with food most of the time, because the cocktail is its own entire thing. Unless you're really want unless you have built specifically a ish for that cocktail, it's all going to get muddled. Which I know is a pun, but sorry, um it's true. Opposed to something like wine, which I think does have just a relative simplicity that you bring out extra flavors. Now, I think you're right up into some tasting dinners with like full on cocktail pairings, and it it always just feels not quite right, yum, the idea of it, and then even when you're trying it, it's like, well, here's here are you know, four flavors of the glass, and then here are x many of flavors on the plate, and it's just kind of over overload. Yeah. Absolutely. Um. So, okay, is is there a better word than mocktail? There must be? Yeah, I mean mocktail it's cheesy. And also, as we were saying, like it conveys that these drinks are trying to be cocktails, when in fact there good drinks in their own right. So yeah, I don't think we've quite hit it with the terminology. Like I've heard spirit free cocktails, virgin of cocktails. Yeah, spirit free virgin cocktails, soft cocktails. Um, I kind of like that. That's sort of my favorite one in the running. Um zero proof cocktails. Um. I almost defiantly want to call them good drinks, like all of the other terms sound like they're missing something or they're longing for something. I mean, Unfortunately, good drinks doesn't quite convey like the complexity of the non alcoholic cocktails that we're talking about, Like a good drink could reference a cold pressed apple juice or a particularly nuanced green tea or something. Um. But soft cocktails I'm kind of liking, yeah, because it makes sense with like soft drink soft tails share yeah, as opposed to hard ones. Yeah. And you've written specifically about mindful drinking culture before. Could you talk a little bit about about that trend? Yeah? So I think this pertains more to low alcohol drinks than no alcohol drinks, at least in my mind. So as the mindfulness movement has entertained the mainstream, right, so too has this has mindful drinking. And I wrote a story about this a couple of years ago for Playboy, And I talked to Tristan Willie, who's a bartender in New York, and he um. He said that his customers at the Long Island Bar, which is a great bar in Brooklyn, um kept making requests like I want a martini, but could you put a little less booze in it? Um? And which isn't I mean that's an interesting increasing request And and his sherry stock is depleting more quickly than ever these days. So like sherry and other fortified wines are relatively low and alcohol by volume, they clock in at like fifteen compared with gin, which runs about Um. I think I have that right. So these lighter styles of drinks are definitely trending. There's the sprits category, um, which is basically, you know, you have either and a pair of teef like liquor like a Saint Germaine or a bit or like an April or even a hard spirit topped off with sparkling wine and some soda water. Um. And I'm just seeing those everywhere, like are you yeah? And like like Chelsea Handler, who's a famous drinker, can't shut up about Aprile's Versus on her Netflix show. I'm like this, Okay, Okay, the vodka queen is drinking Apprile's versus something that's happening. Um. And they are, yeah, they are. And and like it's sort of a cocktail summarized, you know. I mean, it's light and bright and doesn't weigh you down from the again the heavy amount of alcohol. Um. And I think another piece of that for some is that the low alcohol thing can also be about drinking more um. Like like Okay, Matt Toko, he's the beverage director of Strategic Hospitality that's in Nashville, and he said he has the tolerance of a small gerbil Um, but he likes to try a lot of different things and so like low alcohol drinks like an Americano made with campari and vermouth and club soda that works for him. UM and Tristan again who I mentioned Um works at Long Island Bar, like he serves many kind of snack sized negronis, So you could have one of those before dinner and then also have some wine with dinner and not feel um floated down. And then like in Tokyo there's a spar called jin Yamamoto and they offer Oma Cosse flights of four to six two ounce cocktails. Um so agead. I guess you can think of it as like drinking less to drink more, And it's sort of like the top as idea right, Like we are share plates, like we all we are palettes are more kind of open minded than ever before. We want to try a bunch of different things, and so if you have a little bits of them or sharing them with a table, you can have you know, five dishes or taste five dishes instead of two. Um. And it's kind of I'm seeing that with drinks a little bit awesome. Yeah. I think I read somewhere that um, some I can't remember anything about it at all. Like the point of the story. It was about a bartender New York and he was saying, a lot of business people come in and they want to have like the whole culture is, we've got to have a drink together, but they don't want to get wasted. You're a business meeting, So they have one real drink and then they go real drink cocktail and then they go and get like just make it but without them, so I don't get drunk during this meeting. So I think it's a miss people misunderstand, like they always think it's pregnant women that are buying these drinks. But there is a big market for it, and I think the quick the bars start experimenting with it and offering these options some more money for them. Yeah, and hopefully overall, like will become less ashamed to not drink. I mean there's that sort of bro thing about the team. As you were saying, these business people, like the guys or girls who drink together, you know, work well together or whatever it is. I'm curious whether or not that person asks the bartender to make the drink without booze on the side. Yeah, I wondered that too. I Uh, this this was a number of years ago, and it was very much part of a like like post college bro culture kind of group of friends that I had. But they loved Yager shots and I hate Hager and so at this local bar that we went to, it turned into this thing like I took the waitresses side one day and I was like, can you give me a shot of coke? And she was like yeah, and I'm like, I will tip you extra, thank you. And so every time every time they ordered Yeager shots, I would be like, hey, wink wink, and she would bring me and she would bring me a shot of Coca Cola so I could do the shot with them and be included in the group and not have the like weird stigma like oh, you're not doing a shot with us, like all right, like whatever that is. And probably they are more impressed because you went harder. Well, I'm interested in that stigma falling away, for sure. And I think like there have been some great and a books on the market that um do address food pairings that are thorough um, but they're not cool. And I think, like I'm working with a friend of mine who's an art Directorate wired um who just has like really great taste and we're kind of you know. I want to make the fonts and the images especially. I want the images to be I hate using this word, but I mean I want them to be pornographic. I want to even get like really close on a glass and show the beating and show the sort of like color glowing phone within because historically this has not been a sexy category and so really with the design of this book, I want to be like show how you know, it's cool. It's cool to to like not be wasted. Yeah, it really is sound cool to just enjoy enjoy what you're drinking. Yeah, just only have like your options are a coke or water. Right, that's it. That's right. So many friends that when when I was a kid, there was this restaurant, um it was a local Mexican restaurant. They would always order the Shirley Temples, and it was so excited about it, so excited, and I think they would still order those if you could find them they had more options. I can only imagine how happy they love a Shirley Temple. I ordered that as a little girl on my family and I would go out to restaurants. Yeah, there there will be one in the book. There will be yeah, maybe in a coop. Yeah, there is something. There is something. Oh and I hate myself and our culture a little bit for saying it, but there is something sexy about having having one of those I mean in the elegant glass w you know, and it's beautiful and it's cold, and there's the whole sensory thing. It's a beautiful prop you know, and like you should absolutely drink any drinks in those glasses, right, yeah, totally. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Julia. How you can people find you if they want to hear from some more, some more from you. I am on Twitter and Instagram as Julia Bainbridge. That's j U l I A B A N B R I D g um and at Julia Bainbridge dot com you can see a selection of my writing. And then The Lonely Hour is at the Lonely Hour dot com or you can find it on any of your podcatchers like stit, try Tunes, Google Play, blah blah blah blah blah. Awesome, Thank you, thank you so that brings us to the end of this are delightful interview with Julia Bainbridge. Yes, oh so delightful. Um back when we had people come out to a studio and sit around a table together that wild I barely do at this juncture. Um, but yeah, so so the okay, so so the summer after we recorded this interview, the sum Julia wound up driving across the country visiting all of these bartenders and other other cocktail professionals and trying they're non alcoholic offerings and and learning about all these different ingredients and preparations that they were using at the time. And oh and yes, I am so glad that she went with the title good Drinks. Yeah, that is a great title. And um, this is an episode that really stuck with me because it was one I just never really thought about how there weren't that many options other than an alcoholic drink or soda, and there should be. There should and you can have a good drink, yes, that doesn't have alcohol in it. And I'm I'm excited that this is becoming more and more of a thing. You can find it in more and more places. Yeah, because right, there's all kinds of reasons that you might want to not have a drink alcohol in it, you know, be it at all or tonight or this month or for this round, as as Julia is fond of saying. By the way, she's been nominated for a James Beard Award in Home Cooking Journalism. So you know that you put together some really good clear recipes. Um, they're over fifty of them in this book. There are instructions on how to batch them for when we do get to have parties again. And each is labeled with a commitment level, so you know, you know what kind of project you're getting yourself into. Very handy. Yes, Um, so yeah, we're we're like not we're like not her publicity team. We're we're just we're just fans. Um. So I'm I do not currently have the book in my hands as I am saying this, but I look forward to getting a copy soon. And yeah, if you would like to do the same thing, uh, you can. It's again the title is Good Drinks and um you can look for it on on whatever physical or digital shelf you find your books on the dig adual shelf that sounds like, oh those kind of memory palaces things. Oh sure, and and then somebody digital shelf get into your memory palace. But then they can't figure out your layout. Yeah, I think about these things clearly, yes, um. And you can also find Julia online. She's on the social media she is um and uh and she also has a podcast of her own. I can't remember. I can't remember if we talked about that. Um. I listened to this episode a couple of days ago, so I'm not I'm not totally positive anymore. Anything could have happened in between them and now. UM. But yeah, she's on a podcast called The Lonely Hour UM, which is about kind of the the virtues of and then the benefits of living of being by yourself, which also very fitting at the current moment. Yes, yes, so definitely go check those things out. And if you would to contact us, oh you can. We have an email. It is hello at favorite pod dot com. We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at savor pod and we do hope to hear from you. Savor is a production of our Heart Radio. For more podcasts to my heart Radio, you can visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening and we hope that lots market things are coming your way.