Home LivingThe 3 best non-alcoholic drinks for good taste and a clear headKeen to stay off the booze? Here’s the three best alcohol-free beverages we tried in Dry January and are still loving in not-quite-so-dry FebruaryWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Home LivingThe 3 best non-alcoholic drinks for good taste and a clear headKeen to stay off the booze? Here’s the three best alcohol-free beverages we tried in Dry January and are still loving in not-quite-so-dry FebruaryWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Keen to stay off the booze? Here’s the three best alcohol-free beverages we tried in Dry January and are still loving in not-quite-so-dry February
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Zag)
(Image credit: Zag)
A lot of us are keen to cut back on the amount of booze we drink, and little wonder. Whether you’recutting alcohol for weight losspurposes, to improve your mental health, or simply because you’re fed up of waking up in a hedge, there is a lot to be said for it. The only issue is what to drink instead of booze. I find soft drinks are too sweet, and make me feel like I am constantly at a child’s birthday party. There are some excellent alcohol-free versions of beers, but there are also some fairly terrible ones, and the amount of choice is becoming a little overwhelming.
Now, I have a reputation as a man who likes a drink. And that’s because I do. But after consuming just a teensy bit more than doctors would consider strictly sensible over the Christmas period, I decided to try out some less headache-inducing beverages for a month. And while I can’t say I managed to stay completely ‘dry’ during Dry January, I did have more fun than I anticipated trying out some alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks.
So ifyouenjoyed Dry January (or not) and would like to carry on with reduced boozing for the rest of 2022 – or at least for a portion of February – these are my top three picks.
Guinness Draught 0.0
(Image credit: Guinness)
(Image credit: Guinness)
If you don’t like Guinness, Becks Blue is probably my favourite non-alcoholic lager. But this is a much more impressive achievement, for me, and probably the best booze-free booze to date in terms of accurately capturing a complex flavour.
Sea Arch Coastal Juniper
(Image credit: Sea Arch)
(Image credit: Sea Arch)
Taking a different tack to Guinness, this is an alcohol-free gin substitute that, probably wisely, doesn’t claim to be a carbon copy of the original mother’s ruin. It’s described as a mix of ‘juniper, sea kelp, samphire, blood orange, grapefruit, coriander, cardamon, grapefruit and sage,’ which, as the brand name suggests, gives an overall effect that’s redolent of sea air.
The important thing here is that you get the flavour of ‘botanicals’ that characterises gin – most notably juniper, which essentiallyisthe taste of gin as far as most people are concerned. It’s a sophisticated beverage that’s dry, sugar-free and comes in a suitably tasteful bottle made of recycled materials and no plastic.
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ZAG
(Image credit: Zag)
(Image credit: Zag)
Taking a different tack again, Zag is not trying to be a non-alcoholic version of anything. Instead, it’s a completely original beverage that has the adult sophistication of booze, but without the adult sophistication of hangovers, vomiting and long-term memory loss.
I have to say, Zag did not immediately appeal to me; its flavour is quite complex and also, as I say, new and unique. The flavours listed on the bottle are green tea, mint, lemon, kombucha and cucumber which could easily result in a busy mess of flavour, or taste like cold herbal tea. However, the people behind Zag have actually mustered up a very clean, crisp drink here. You can pick out all of those flavours, but they’re extremely well balanced and the result is greater than the sum of its parts. This would be perfect on a summer’s day but it’s proved extremely palatable even in the British winter.
There’s a low-sugar version of Zag, but even the standard version only packs 54 calories per bottle, so I’d stick to that if I were you.
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