October 7, 2020 • 47 mins
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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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
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
(00:29):
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.
(00:52):
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
(01:14):
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.
(01:34):
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
(01:55):
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
(02:19):
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.
(02:44):
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
(03:06):
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
(03:29):
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
(03:51):
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
(04:14):
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
(04:35):
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,
(04:55):
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
(05:19):
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
(05:41):
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,
(06:03):
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.
(06:24):
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
(06:45):
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,
(07:08):
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
(07:29):
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
(07:50):
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,
(08:14):
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
(08:37):
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.
(09:00):
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,
(09:22):
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
(09:42):
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
(10:03):
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
(10:26):
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
(10:46):
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
(11:07):
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,
(11:29):
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
(11:52):
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.
(12:15):
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,
(12:36):
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.
(12:58):
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
(13:22):
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,
(13:44):
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.
(14:04):
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
(14:27):
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
(14:50):
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
(15:12):
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,
(15:33):
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
(15:54):
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,
(16:18):
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
(16:39):
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.
(17:01):
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
(17:26):
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
(17:49):
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
(18:12):
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,
(18:32):
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
(18:54):
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
(19:15):
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
(19:38):
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
(19:59):
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
(20:24):
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,
(20:45):
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
(21:08):
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
(21:31):
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
(21:53):
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,
(22:18):
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
(22:38):
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
(23:00):
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
(23:20):
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.
(23:43):
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
(24:06):
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
(24:29):
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
(24:50):
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
(25:11):
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
(25:32):
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.
(25:53):
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
(26:13):
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
(26:34):
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
(26:55):
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
(27:16):
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
(27:40):
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.
(28:01):
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
(28:22):
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
(28:45):
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
(29:06):
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.
(29:30):
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
(29:50):
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
(30:11):
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
(30:34):
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,
(30:56):
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
(31:18):
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
(31:40):
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?
(32:04):
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.
(32:29):
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
(32:51):
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
(33:14):
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
(33:35):
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
(33:56):
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
(34:19):
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
(34:39):
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
(35:00):
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
(35:21):
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,
(35:43):
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.
(36:03):
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.
(36:26):
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,
(36:47):
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
(37:09):
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
(37:30):
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
(37:52):
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
(38:14):
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
(38:34):
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
(38:55):
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
(39:18):
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.
(39:39):
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
(39:59):
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
(40:20):
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
(40:41):
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
(41:01):
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
(41:25):
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
(41:47):
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
(42:08):
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
(42:30):
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
(42:51):
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
(43:13):
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,
(43:34):
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
(43:55):
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
(44:17):
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,
(44:40):
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.
(45:01):
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
(45:23):
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
(45:44):
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
(46:07):
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
(46:28):
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
(46:51):
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
(47:12):
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.
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
(00:29):
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.
(00:52):
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
(01:14):
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.
(01:34):
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
(01:55):
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
(02:19):
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.
(02:44):
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
(03:06):
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
(03:29):
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
(03:51):
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
(04:14):
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
(04:35):
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,
(04:55):
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
(05:19):
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
(05:41):
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,
(06:03):
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.
(06:24):
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
(06:45):
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,
(07:08):
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
(07:29):
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
(07:50):
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,
(08:14):
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
(08:37):
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.
(09:00):
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,
(09:22):
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
(09:42):
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
(10:03):
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
(10:26):
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
(10:46):
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
(11:07):
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,
(11:29):
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
(11:52):
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.
(12:15):
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,
(12:36):
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.
(12:58):
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
(13:22):
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,
(13:44):
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.
(14:04):
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
(14:27):
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
(14:50):
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
(15:12):
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,
(15:33):
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
(15:54):
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,
(16:18):
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
(16:39):
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.
(17:01):
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
(17:26):
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
(17:49):
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
(18:12):
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,
(18:32):
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
(18:54):
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
(19:15):
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
(19:38):
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
(19:59):
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
(20:24):
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,
(20:45):
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
(21:08):
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
(21:31):
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
(21:53):
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,
(22:18):
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
(22:38):
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
(23:00):
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
(23:20):
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.
(23:43):
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
(24:06):
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
(24:29):
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
(24:50):
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
(25:11):
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
(25:32):
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.
(25:53):
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
(26:13):
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
(26:34):
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
(26:55):
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
(27:16):
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
(27:40):
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.
(28:01):
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
(28:22):
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
(28:45):
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
(29:06):
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.
(29:30):
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
(29:50):
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
(30:11):
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
(30:34):
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,
(30:56):
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
(31:18):
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
(31:40):
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?
(32:04):
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.
(32:29):
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
(32:51):
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
(33:14):
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
(33:35):
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
(33:56):
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
(34:19):
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
(34:39):
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
(35:00):
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
(35:21):
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,
(35:43):
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.
(36:03):
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.
(36:26):
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,
(36:47):
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
(37:09):
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
(37:30):
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
(37:52):
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
(38:14):
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
(38:34):
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
(38:55):
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
(39:18):
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.
(39:39):
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
(39:59):
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
(40:20):
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
(40:41):
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
(41:01):
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
(41:25):
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
(41:47):
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
(42:08):
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
(42:30):
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
(42:51):
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
(43:13):
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,
(43:34):
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
(43:55):
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
(44:17):
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,
(44:40):
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.
(45:01):
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
(45:23):
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
(45:44):
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
(46:07):
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
(46:28):
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
(46:51):
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
(47:12):
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.
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