Drinks that Taste of Seasides and Woodsy Walks

I’ve got a creepy bartending quirk. Every time I see somebody going to take their first sip of a mocktail I’ve made, I stop what I’m doing to watch. Whether I’m mid-conversation or mid-shake, everything freezes for a brief moment, and I see only the minutiae of that person’s facial expressions. This ritual is not necessarily to see if they like the drink, though of course it’s always nice when your flavour intentions stick the landing. It’s to see if they notice the drink. I mean, really notice it.

In a post-truth era where it’s hard to surprise anyone anymore, this is why I love the mocktail. (And yes, despite proselytizing from the craft cocktail scene to banish the word in favour of “zero-proof cocktail,” it’s still OK to call it a mocktail — fight me.) It’s that brief moment of double-take. A tiny pause in a conversation. A raised eyebrow, a furrowed brow. A Diet Coke is a Diet Coke, a negroni is a negroni, and the conversation carries on. But a jalapeno, parsley and cardamom soda? Now you’ve got somebody’s attention.

A common mistake that bartenders make when designing their zero-proof program is that they think they are plugging a hole. Offering a consolation prize. Soothing a longing by producing as close a substitute as they can muster to “the real thing.” To a traditional bartender, their customer has only ever wanted a boozy cocktail. And thus, for better or for worse, mocktails continue to be defined by their proximity to alcohol.

Of course, there’s tremendous archival value in the established canon of classic cocktails that we sober bartenders riff on all the time. (Clarified grasshopper milk punch, anyone?) Credit needs to be given where it is due. And yet, it is the absence of alcohol’s familiar flavours that allows for mocktails to be so surprising in the first place. Culinary creativity behind the bar is nothing new, but with the “soft crush” of a broader move towards zero-proof alternatives came an opportunity the food-and-beverage scene didn’t even realize it wanted: the rare gift of a blank slate.

We have expected so little of our zero-proof offerings for so long that even a modest effort at producing an original bouquet of wet flavours is usually met with resounding enthusiasm, or at least with curiosity. Here we have the chance to play with context, offering combinations of ingredients that diners have doubtless tasted on the plate, but never in the glass. Sure, you’ve probably tried ponzu sauce or a Waldorf salad before, but have you ever tried them as drinks?

Do these flavours always delight? Suffice it to say that blue cheese syrup isn’t everybody’s idea of a good time. Less favourable reactions to some of the more potent elixirs have been hilariously visceral, such as a beverage made with a fermented hemp spirit that one woman described as tasting “like hairspray and shoe polish.” Recently, an experiment with melting Swedish salted licorice fish into a dark, briny stock was affectionately nicknamed “orc blood” amongst staff.

What I find especially delightful is when people describe the flavours that appeal to them, but that evade easy characterization.

“This tastes like somebody beating clean linens against a rock on the Cornish seaside,” one person said about a potion composed of a brackish botanical gin alternative made with coastal herbs, tonic, elderflower and orange blossom.

“It tastes the way a walk in the woods feels,” said somebody else about a brew made with spruce tips, saffron and dandelion root.

And there it is, the thing that I love most about mocktails: we do not always know what to expect from them, nor how to describe them. It’s difficult to be jaded about a thing you’ve never tried, and so most folks approach mocktails relieved of the weight of their assumptions, to gather with friends and to try something new.

Who knows how long this open-heartedness towards zero-proof innovation will last? How long the sober curious will remain curious? For now, I intend to enjoy my perch behind.