How to bring some old-timey flair to your non-alcoholic cocktails

Non-alcoholic drinks might feel like a new trend, but they have a long and intriguing past.

Temperance drinks, for example, date back to the 1800s, when the temperance movement encouraged many North Americans to moderate or give up alcohol for religious, moral or health reasons. 

Some of these alcohol-free beverages became household staples, proprietary formulas that evolved into the colas, root beers and ginger ales still found on store shelves today.

Other recipes appeared in housekeeping manuals and early cocktail books, offering plenty of inspiration for creating festive, non-alcoholic drinks that are both novel and nostalgic.

Fast-forward to the present, and it might seem like the "sober curious" movement popped up overnight. But it began taking shape about a decade ago when non-alcoholic "spirits" entered the market, inspiring bartenders to reinvent overly sweet "mocktails" into complex, "zero-proof cocktails" or "temperance drinks" — terms they felt better reflected their thoughtful, elevated approach to alcohol-free mixology.  

Old-fashioned inspo 

Many bartenders are turning to old recipes and traditional preservation methods to make their ingredients, including tinctures, infusions and "shrubs" (not a small bush but a way to preserve fruit). Pre-made versions of things like shrubs and syrups have become more widely available in recent years. 

There's also an impressive range of easily sourced non-alcoholic facsimiles of gin, tequila, rum, whisky, aperitifs, amaro, vermouth and even cocktail bitters. With some tweaking of proportions, they make it possible to make non-boozy versions of almost any classic cocktail.    

"There's so many non-alcoholic products that you can use as dupes," said Lindsay Jones, bar manager at the Ostrich Club in Halifax. With all these options, she said, when it comes to serving guests, "There's really no excuse for not having non-alcoholic cocktails anymore."

Frothy fun

A super-simple way to get started with creamy non-alcoholic drinks is to play with flips, a family of cocktails that got their start around 1690 when a clever innovator heated up a small tankard of rum, ale and molasses by sticking a red-hot iron poker into the drink until it got all nice and frothy.

Thankfully, frothing up hearty drinks no longer calls for a hot poker. Flips are now made simply enough, by shaking together a whole egg, cream, sugar and spirits over ice in a cocktail tin. If that sounds odd, try imagining it as a single-serve eggnog.

One of the most famous old flips is the "coffee cocktail," a mixture of port, brandy, egg and sugar — but no coffee — which was included in Jerry Thomas's 1887 The Bartenders Guide or How to Mix All Kinds of Plain and Fancy Drinks, one of the oldest cocktail books in existence. 

You can make this winter classic live up to its name by using actual coffee instead of port and cognac. For a zero-proof coffee cocktail, add two ounces of chilled espresso (or chilled tea or a non-alcoholic spirit) to an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Next, add three-quarters of an ounce of heavy cream, one tablespoon of superfine sugar (if not available, any granulated sugar is fine) and a whole egg. Shake vigorously for at least a minute until the ingredients are nicely integrated and the drink is frothy. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a dusting of freshly grated nutmeg.

Turn up the heat

Edmonton's Calliope Draper, who works at Split Zero Proof, a bar that trades exclusively in non-alcoholic drinks, has a different strategy for filling in the flavour and texture gap that's sometimes left by omitting spirits.

"One of the things that we've been finding is quite popular is spiciness in places that you wouldn't quite anticipate it, to kind of mimic that burn of alcohol," she said. "So something that's like a horchata-based cocktail with some Thai chili in it will have that creamy tropical-ness, but it also has that kick."  

You can also introduce spice into your seasonal cocktail by leaning on another traditional ingredient, non-alcoholic ginger beer. Some folks like to make their own, but with plenty of good options at most supermarkets, there's really no need. 

Add punch with a shrub

A super-festive way to use ginger beer is by mixing four parts ginger beer with one or two parts cranberry shrub (to taste) to make a drink with a balance of bright acidity, bittersweet fruit and a kick of ginger spice. 

Shrubs are a simple preservation method that was popular with settlers in North America who used them to extend the life of summer fruit, particularly berries.

To make a cranberry shrub, combine two cups of fresh cranberries with one cup of sugar and one cup of apple cider or white wine vinegar (or a mixture of both) in a blender and mix on high. When the mixture is an even consistency, pour it into a non-reactive container and leave it in a cool place (like a cellar or pantry) for 24 hours. 

Strain through cheesecloth into a bottle and refrigerate. When it's time to serve guests, pour an ounce of shrub into an ice-filled highball glass and top with ginger beer. Garnish with a sprig of mint or rosemary.