It’s a hot summer afternoon. I’m sitting down on a hot afternoon, with a burger, and a cold beer.
What I’m looking for is something to replace that cold beer with. I want it to be crisp and fresh, but also not sweet. I love tart and bitter flavours. Unfortunately, my options are either cold and sweet, cold and alcoholic or hot and non sweet.
So threadiverse, what alternatives am I missing?
Tereré is great, but it’s a bit of a pain to source in Australia. What else is there?
Non alcoholic radler? (Beer diluted with soda lemon - it is said that a brewery in munchen had too many cyclists one day and not enough beer to serve everyone, so in order to maximize profits and avoid leaving money on the table he decided to scam them by diluting the beer with lemon juice and saying “it’s less alcoholic so it’s perfect for you cyclists 😉” - and somehow they liked it instead of getting pissed)
Subcontinental:
- gin
- Cointreau
- cucumber juice
- lime juice
- simple syrup
For a non-alcoholic drink, suerta:
- 3 limes (preferably Mexican or Key limes)
- Coarse kosher salt
- Chilled sparkling water
- Ice
Sparkling water with pickle juice. Add bitters if you want different flavors.
Unsweet iced tea
I think Tapache might be a good idea to take a look at.
Unsweetened, iced, mint tea.
Non alcoholic beer
This right here. Some are very bad, but there are some really good ones around these days. Guinness for example tastes almost identical to real Guinness.
Seconded, non alcoholic Guinness is excellent.
I also like the NA forms of:
- Corona
- Peroni
- Warsteiner
- Erdinger
Had a few other good ones but can’t recall which they were.
I actually think Guinness zero tastes different but in fact way better than the original. There’s been times when i was drinking, but would occasionally opt for a zero if it was an option.
Leffe blonde LA (0.5%, i think) is awesome, miles better than most. I find the Guinness LA a bit bland, lacking in the aftertaste and a bit watery.
On the days when I’m really just hanging out for, and worked a really sweaty, dirty day on the chainsaws, I drink N/A beer. The cheapest I can find. It either hits the spot or it tastes like garbage and turns me off beer again. Either way it averts the craving and lets me stay sober. Most alcos in recovery will frown on N/A beer, but I don’t care, whatever helps me not drink alcohol is fair game.
Gaspacho? At least it is cool and savory…
If you are willing to make it yourself, kvass or ginger beer, those can be dry and sparkling. Water kefir or kombucha. All very, very low in alcohol, not intoxicating. Chinotto soda is something I buy for dry months too.
As someone else said, tonic water has a bitter edge that really hits the spot, I make a sweet non alcoholic cocktail called the Friend Zone, made with strawberry tepache (strawberry fruit kvass), lime, and tonic water, and I swear everyone thinks it’s a boozy cocktail. Too sweet for what you are looking for here but it’s certainly the tonic pulling most of the weight.
My go-to social drink is a club soda with a twist of lime
It is simple, cheap and has the added benefit of sort of looking like it might be a vodka club or gin and tonic.
Not sure about availability or price in AU, but I like “hoplark” non alcoholic beer. Their IPAs are awesome.
80% Unsweetened iced tea, 20% lemonade. Play with the ratios. (the classic Arnold Palmer is 50/50 but that’s too sweet for me.)
Tonic and Angustura on ice, with a splash of lemon. I put a dab of sugar sometimes.
Tonic water is your friend. Works for both low-alcohol options (bitters, preferably citrus bitters but you can experiment) and boozy ones (G&Ts are obviously a classic, whiskey tonics are pretty nice sometimes, herbal liqueurs work very well, etc.)
Often when I’m out and want another drink, but don’t want to keep drinking, plain tonic water is the preferred choice recently. I got 99 problems, but malaria ain’t one 😎.
Beyond that, you can look into the wild world of drinking shrubs.. Haven’t been arsed to try it yet but I like the concept.
I tried switching to gin and tonics at one point, and they are good, but I ended up looking up how many calories I might be saving, and realized a g/t had the same amount of calories as a rum and coke.
I hadn’t realized there was sugar content like that in tonic. But I did get a nice dance with a friendly brunette while drinking a g/t. Come to think of it that may be the only reason I was drinking g/t’s…
Rye kvass, Kombucha
