It’s a hot summer afternoon. I’m sitting down on a hot afternoon, with a burger, and a cold beer.
What I’m looking for is something to replace that cold beer with. I want it to be crisp and fresh, but also not sweet. I love tart and bitter flavours. Unfortunately, my options are either cold and sweet, cold and alcoholic or hot and non sweet.
So threadiverse, what alternatives am I missing?
Tereré is great, but it’s a bit of a pain to source in Australia. What else is there?
I haven’t seen it mentioned in here, but switchel is a favorite of mine. Water, Apple cider vinegar, some kind of sweetener (molasses is traditional), and ginger. Pretty easy to make a pitcher of during the summer. Tart, and hits the spot in the summer. You can also utilize a shrub for some NA mocktails.
Non alcoholic radler? (Beer diluted with soda lemon - it is said that a brewery in munchen had too many cyclists one day and not enough beer to serve everyone, so in order to maximize profits and avoid leaving money on the table he decided to scam them by diluting the beer with lemon juice and saying “it’s less alcoholic so it’s perfect for you cyclists 😉” - and somehow they liked it instead of getting pissed)
Subcontinental:
- gin
- Cointreau
- cucumber juice
- lime juice
- simple syrup
For a non-alcoholic drink, suerta:
- 3 limes (preferably Mexican or Key limes)
- Coarse kosher salt
- Chilled sparkling water
- Ice
Sparkling water with pickle juice. Add bitters if you want different flavors.
Unsweet iced tea
Unsweetened, iced, mint tea.
I think Tapache might be a good idea to take a look at.
Non alcoholic beer
On the days when I’m really just hanging out for, and worked a really sweaty, dirty day on the chainsaws, I drink N/A beer. The cheapest I can find. It either hits the spot or it tastes like garbage and turns me off beer again. Either way it averts the craving and lets me stay sober. Most alcos in recovery will frown on N/A beer, but I don’t care, whatever helps me not drink alcohol is fair game.
Gaspacho? At least it is cool and savory…
If you are willing to make it yourself, kvass or ginger beer, those can be dry and sparkling. Water kefir or kombucha. All very, very low in alcohol, not intoxicating. Chinotto soda is something I buy for dry months too.
As someone else said, tonic water has a bitter edge that really hits the spot, I make a sweet non alcoholic cocktail called the Friend Zone, made with strawberry tepache (strawberry fruit kvass), lime, and tonic water, and I swear everyone thinks it’s a boozy cocktail. Too sweet for what you are looking for here but it’s certainly the tonic pulling most of the weight.
80% Unsweetened iced tea, 20% lemonade. Play with the ratios. (the classic Arnold Palmer is 50/50 but that’s too sweet for me.)
My go-to social drink is a club soda with a twist of lime
It is simple, cheap and has the added benefit of sort of looking like it might be a vodka club or gin and tonic.
Not sure about availability or price in AU, but I like “hoplark” non alcoholic beer. Their IPAs are awesome.
Tonic and Angustura on ice, with a splash of lemon. I put a dab of sugar sometimes.
Tonic water is your friend. Works for both low-alcohol options (bitters, preferably citrus bitters but you can experiment) and boozy ones (G&Ts are obviously a classic, whiskey tonics are pretty nice sometimes, herbal liqueurs work very well, etc.)
Often when I’m out and want another drink, but don’t want to keep drinking, plain tonic water is the preferred choice recently. I got 99 problems, but malaria ain’t one 😎.
Beyond that, you can look into the wild world of drinking shrubs.. Haven’t been arsed to try it yet but I like the concept.
I tried switching to gin and tonics at one point, and they are good, but I ended up looking up how many calories I might be saving, and realized a g/t had the same amount of calories as a rum and coke.
I hadn’t realized there was sugar content like that in tonic. But I did get a nice dance with a friendly brunette while drinking a g/t. Come to think of it that may be the only reason I was drinking g/t’s…
