Brief Summary
This video explores the growing trend of non-alcoholic cocktails, driven by health-conscious consumers and the desire for sophisticated, adult-like drinks without alcohol. It discusses the evolution of non-alcoholic options, from simple soft drink mixes to complex spirit alternatives. The video also features three non-alcoholic cocktail recipes: an Espresso MartiNO, a No Fashioned, and a NoGroni Sbagliato, using products from Seedlip, Spiritless, and Liars. It also touches on the philosophical question of why we drink cocktails and what role alcohol plays in that experience.
- The non-alcoholic cocktail industry is rapidly expanding, offering alternatives to traditional spirits.
- Two main methods for creating non-alcoholic spirits: distillation and botanical blending.
- Featured recipes include an Espresso MartiNO, a No Fashioned, and a NoGroni Sbagliato.
The host introduces the topic of non-alcoholic cocktails, motivated by the desire to incorporate healthier options into regular drinking habits rather than restricting it to events like "Dry January". He notes the rapid growth and innovation in the non-alcoholic beverage industry, driven by health-conscious consumers. While bars are traditionally associated with alcohol, they also serve as community hubs, and non-alcoholic options are needed to make everyone feel included. Early attempts at non-alcoholic cocktails were often just elaborate soft drinks, but the emergence of companies like Seedlip in 2014 marked a turning point by offering complex, non-alcoholic alternatives to spirits. Now, there's a thriving industry of spirit replacements. There are two common methods for making non-alcoholic spirits: distilling a spirit and then removing the alcohol, or blending botanicals, spices, and extracts to mimic the flavors of various spirits.
The first cocktail demonstrated is the Espresso MartiNO, a non-alcoholic version of the Espresso Martini, using Seedlip's Spice 94. The recipe includes half an ounce of simple syrup, one ounce of espresso, and two ounces of Seedlip Spice 94. Before mixing, the host tastes the Seedlip Spice 94, noting its warming spices and citrus notes. He emphasizes viewing it as an alternative to spirits rather than a direct replacement.
The host tastes the finished Espresso MartiNO, expressing satisfaction that the delicate spice notes of the Seedlip are not overwhelmed by the coffee. He describes the warming spices, such as cardamom and nutmeg, that complement the coffee's bitterness, balanced by the simple syrup. He concludes that it's a good alternative and enjoyable.
Recipe for Espresso MartiNO is: 0.5 oz simple syrup, 1 oz espresso, 2 oz Seedlip Spice 94.
The next cocktail is a non-alcoholic Old Fashioned, named "No Fashioned," made with Spiritless's Kentucky 74 spiced cinnamon whiskey. The host notes that Kentucky 74 closely mimics bourbon with flavors of caramel, vanilla, smoke, and pepper, the latter attempting to replicate the ethanol flavor. This product has a shelf life of 12 months and doesn't require refrigeration. It's made by distilling a spirit and then removing the alcohol, blending in some of the heads and tails from the initial distillation, resulting in a 0.5% alcohol content.
The host tastes the "No Fashioned," acknowledging that while it doesn't replace bourbon, it's a good alternative when one can't drink alcohol. He notes the presence of angostura bitters, which contributes to the overall flavor profile, and appreciates the complex flavor it offers.
Recipe for No Fashioned is: 4 dashes of angostura bitters, 0.25 oz of Demerara syrup, 2 oz of the Kentucky 74 spice.
The final cocktail is a non-alcoholic Negroni Sbagliato, or "NoGroni Sbagliato," using products from Liars, an Australian brand founded in 2019. Liars products are made from a blend of distillates, natural essences, and extracts, and they contain natural sugars to mimic the mouthfeel of alcohol. These products should be refrigerated after opening and have a shelf life of around 12 weeks.
The host demonstrates the proper way to open a bottle of champagne or sparkling wine. This involves removing the foil, loosening the cage while keeping a thumb on top to prevent the cork from popping out, and then twisting the bottle from the bottom to ease the cork out slowly and quietly.
The host tastes the "NoGroni Sbagliato," finding it dry and hitting all the right notes without alcohol. He appreciates the combination of the bitter orange and aperitif flavors, complemented by the dry, bubbly element.
Recipe for NoGroni Sbagliato is: 1 oz of the Liar's bitter orange, 1 oz of the apertifroso, top up with non-alcoholic bubbly.
The host reflects on the purpose of non-alcoholic spirits, questioning whether the point of drinking cocktails is the alcohol itself or the desire for a nuanced, adult beverage. He expresses his intention to explore this question further on the channel.
The pro tip is about how to properly cut an orange wheel for garnishing cocktails. The host advises cutting the orange from pole to pole (navel to opposite end) rather than across the middle to achieve the best appearance with intact juice cells.
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Transcript
Full transcript of “3 Easy Mocktails You'll LOVE ❤️ (Non Alcoholic)”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 what's up guys welcome back to the educated Barfly I am your Intrepid host Leandro Diamond Riva and today I thought it would be a good thing to get into some non-alcoholic cocktails I didn't want to do a dry January post for a couple of reasons the first of which I just I don't like the idea that we wait until January of every year to give our livers a break the fact is I enjoy drinking but it isn't the healthiest thing for you and so it's really important to be very measured when we're drinking cocktails and a good way to do this is working some non-alcoholic cocktails into your regular rotation luckily for us this side of the industry is exploding right now and there's so so so much innovation has happened in the last five years driven mostly by people who are being more health conscious and as a result of that bartenders have to step up to the plate and fill that demand although we associate the bar with alcohol really one of the biggest
0:45 reasons to go to the bar is the sense of community that we get from going we don't necessarily need to drink while we're there although if we're being honest there's always a little bit of a stigma on people standing around the bar and not drinking and the people that are not drinking want to have something to drink but most of them want something that feels a little more adult and soda water and soft drinks just don't cut it anymore so while there has been this massive demand there hasn't always been an elegant solution to the problem until now non-alcoholic cocktails went through a couple of different phases over the past 10 years or so in the first phase most bars would make an effort to make non-alcoholic cocktails but they just throw together a drink with whatever they had on hand not serving enough of them to take on the extra supply cost to have them permanently on the menu then as more drinkers started demanding more na options bars began really putting some creativity behind it and coming up
1:31 with very exciting options but a lot of these drinks were really elaborate and inventive but still they were all basically gussied up soft drinks then back in 2014 a company called seedlip began making product that was not necessarily supposed to replace the booze but be a viable alternative to drinking boots they made a product designed to sort of Hit the same note as the booze in your drinks with that nuance and complexity of flavor but none of the alcohol this was really exciting Innovation and it opened a door that a lot of people have been rushing through ever since it was now possible to approach making reasonable representations of classic cocktails with no alcohol somewhat easily and you know what that drink is able to stand on its own as a good drink since then many many companies have stepped into the arena and we now have a full-blown industry of spirits replacements for
2:17 cocktails so how are these products made from what I gathered there are two common approaches to making non-alcoholic spirits and the first is to distill a foolproof spirit and then redistill the alcohol out some of these products have a small amount of alcohol left in their makeup but they're basically the same as like a non-alcoholic beer so they're like point five percent alcohol these products tend to be a shelf stable so you don't need to refrigerate them and they can be stored the same way as you store all of your spirits the other approach is to blend Botanicals spices Roots barks Essences and distillates to mimic various Spirits these are not shelf stable and they must be refrigerated and consumed within a few months or they're going to go bad and they're going to taste off okay I think that's enough info for you guys let's actually make some of the cocktails today's video is sponsored by trade and I've made a
3:03 coffee cocktail today because I like to do that with my Trade coffee trade is a subscription coffee service that pairs you up with some of the best Roasters in the country they are brilliant at getting coffee that I love everything they've ever sent me has been amazing and when you know what the greatest part about them is is that if they send you a coffee that you don't like they'll give you a bag for free they'll send you another bag so although I drink a fair amount of coffee in the morning I don't really know that much about coffee and so one of the things that I really hate doing is trolling the grocery store looking for different coffees trying to figure out something that I'll like it's really nice to have somebody there that will curate something based on my flavor profiles based on the things that I like it's a really great way to explore a bunch of different new coffees you don't have to drink the same coffee over and over and over again although you can if you find something you like and then
3:48 also it's really easy to customize to your life so if you're in a moment where you're not drinking that much coffee you can slow down your subscription if you need more because you have family in town or you're just going through a lot of coffee you can ramp it up we've been partnered up with trade for a really long time I've been using their products for about a year and this is a great way to support the channel so if you really love coffee and you want to help out the channel you can click the link below and use coupon code Barfly at checkout or go to drinktrade.com Barfly and get a free bag of coffee with any order that is drinktrade.com Barfly for a free bag of coffee the espresso Martino is exactly what it sounds like an espresso martini with no booze for this drink we're going to be using seedlips spice 94 which was the first expression the company launched with in 2015. today they have a couple of more expressions and they
4:34 really expanded their line all right let's get into it we're gonna do half an ounce of simple syrup one ounce of espresso and we're gonna do two ounces of the seed lip but you know what I think I'm gonna do guys I think I'm gonna taste this before we actually make the cocktail let's give it a little taster shall we so I really get this that spice those kind of warming spices right on the nose and a little bit of citrus oh yeah I mean it's like very citrusy and tart and then it has all of those warming spices on the back end I'm really missing the ethanol burn and you really don't have the same mouth feel as alcohol but I would just impress on all of you guys to really think of this not so much as like a spirit's replacement but as a spirit's alternative because if
5:19 you're thinking about it as a replacement it might be a little bit disappointing for you add some ice to our tin and give it a shake on this strain our cocktail here taste it before I garnish it right it is a very beautiful drink really like that the thing that I was worried about initially with this cocktail is the seed lip is actually very delicate in flavor and I was worried that the coffee would kind of overrun those spice notes but I'm really happy to report that that didn't actually happen you can still taste those warming spices like I don't know I taste like cardamom and Nutmeg
6:05 and there's like these really nice kind of warming spices to it that go really well with the coffee and then of course we're just giving it a little bit of simple syrup for some balance and sweetness and it's just really nice and it also cuts the bitterness of the coffee so you have something that's a little smoother it's really nicely palatable and then on top of that it's a good espresso Martini like if someone gave me this I would be into it and then we're gonna throw a little garnish on here poop ah perfect oh perfect there it is the espresso Martino so the next character that we're doing is an old-fashioned and we're going to be using spiritless's Kentucky 74 spiced cinnamon whiskey spiritless has really achieved a product that feels a little
6:51 bit more like bourbon than the Alternatives out there it has all the right flavors of caramel vanilla a little bit of smoke but it also has a little pepper in this formula that tries to replicate the ethanol flavor that you'd encounter in an alcohol Spirit do the cap casein and the pepper that they use it's pretty brilliant this product is good for about 12 months on the Shelf after it's opened there's no need to refrigerate it so Kentucky 74 is made in a really cool way they first distill a foolproof Spirit then redistil it to remove the alcohol to get the mouth feel just right they actually have saved some of the heads and tails from the first distillation and blend it in so the product has like 0.5 alcohol by volume same as like a near beer you won't get drunk on it but it is not 100 alcohol free we're gonna build this just like an old fashioned I'm actually gonna put a couple of dashes of bitters in here you can use non-alcoholic bitters I'm going to be using actual angostura Bitters and
7:37 I will say this about non-alcoholic yeah I think we need to define something here people are going to say ah the angoster is really high proof and it is but the amount of angostura that goes in here with the volume of other things is going to really dilute a lot of that alcohol down I think that there's a difference between non-alcoholic cocktails and alcohol-free cocktails this one is not an alcohol-free cocktail this has a little alcohol in it this has a little alcohol in it but none of it is going to get you drunk all right so a couple few dashes we'll say four of angostura Bitters and then we're gonna do between a quarter and a half an ounce depending on how sweet you want it the product is actually a little bit sweet so I'm actually going to go with a quarter of an ounce of Demerara syrup I think that's all we need for this particular cocktail and then we're going to pour two ounces of the Kentucky 74 spice
8:23 let's taste this oh even though I kind of gave you flavor kind of profiles anyway but okay so it's not as thin as the C lip was you know it's got a little more viscosity to it tastes like cinnamon you get those brown sugar notes a little bit of smoke still a little bit thin the thing about this flavor is that it's not a very long flavor and even though it has the cap case in it it's not super spicy so it's not really replacing the ethanol that much for me but I feel like if they make it more pepper spicy it's going to be like too peppery if that makes it sense does that make sense like it's going to be like it's not going to be the same type of ethanol burn if they put too much pepper it's going to be actually spicy and it's going to burn it's not going to burn in the same way that ethanol does so I think that they did a pretty good job with it I mean you know it doesn't replace
9:09 bourbon for me but if I can't drink it's a good alternative I think all right so we're just going to take our ice here hopefully our ice doesn't crack I didn't temper it and then we're gonna stir it like so into our big glass and by the way we make this glass with a company called Amela so if you guys are looking for a really nice big heavy chunky awesome old-fashioned glass that's a little bit higher in volume it also works good for Mai ties and stuff like that hit up the link below a nice little orange twist all right let's let's taste this guy I mean I'm really tempering my expectations here that's the thing it's got the angostura it really feels like an old-fashioned I don't have that
9:54 ethanol burn which I do miss the first person to figure out how to synthesize ethanol in a non-alcoholic spirit is going to be the next billionaire you've heard it first here hopefully I'll be that guy I feel torn because it's good you know if I were given if I could not drink and I wanted something to hang out with my friends and drink this would be a nice complex flavored thing to have in my hand I like it it tastes good it doesn't replace an old-fashioned for me but I don't think it's really supposed to I think it's supposed to give you something when you can't have that old-fashioned so there it is guys the no fashioned so the last cocktail we're going to be doing is a no groanie spagliato ever since Emma de RC got on the internet and blew the Negroni spagliato up I have been getting hit up by people to do one we've actually done one in the past so I
10:40 haven't really been you know quick on the draw about it the products from the next brand that we're going to be looking at is Liars which is founded in 2019 by two Australians living in Britain unlike some of the other products that we looked at today Liars isn't made by distillation but rather from a blend of distillates natural Essences and extracts to sort of mimic the flavor of alcohol and just so you know it is not sugar-free they use a blend of natural sugars to mimic the mouth feel of alcohol but they are according to their own website very low in calories uh when compared to you know foolproof Spirits or whatever because Liars products are macerations they should be refrigerated directly after opening especially in warmer climates and if not refrigerating they should be stored in a cool dry place they last around 12 weeks after opening they do not last forever all right let's make our Negroni spagliato or no groanings so
11:26 again we're going to be building this in a glass all right should we taste this I'm actually very very I have very high hopes for this because these are aperitivo in Italy there are apparativos in bottles in every single supermarket and there are a whole range of non-alcoholic ones so there is a precedent set for this product it should taste pretty good all right so this is the bitter orange here and then this other one is their uh apparatif Russo yeah it looks a lot more red in the bottle than it does there oh yep oh that's good I like it that's really good that really hits the spot and you know what it does have that kind of more syrupy not syrupy but it has that kind of a little bit more viscosity in the mouthfeel so it doesn't
12:12 taste like flavored water that one's really good too I like it okay so we're gonna take our bitter orange here we're gonna do one ounce of the Liar's bitter orange and we're going to take one ounce of the apertifroso grab some ice give it a stir it's pretty cool is that Liars actually makes a non-alcoholic bubbly as well so I guess I should use this as an opportunity to show you guys how to properly open a champagne bottle okay so uh here's your champagne bottle just like this you want to take this little tab right here usually they have this little Tab and you want to remove the foil like so because there is a small chance that the cork could pop out because it's under pressure you want to place your thumb here and then you want to open
12:58 this up and what's kind of funny is that every single bottle this little cage I've learned this from my really good pal and fellow YouTuber Zach zoske it's actually exactly six turns to get the cage off which is pretty cool right okay so now we're pressing here what we're going to want to do here is we're going to put our hand on the cage like so if you were in a fancy restaurant you would probably be using like a towel around this I don't have a fancy towel though and I don't want to use my stained bar rag for it but you would have a fancy towel and what you want to do is you want to twist it from the bottom like this working the cork out now this might take a little bit of time you do not want to hear a pop you just want to hear it come out with a little bit of gas and then you have opened your champagne safely and then we're just going to top this up I'm
13:45 going to use this technique to put this in the bottom of the glass like so so that it doesn't layer on top and we're going to Top This up with our bubbly like so and then of course because it is a Negroni spagliata we are going to cut an orange here cut a nice wedge and then you should have those perfect orange juice cells and we can just like plug that up there there like that okay let's give it a sip oh yeah it's nice and dry it hits all the right things it doesn't have any alcohol I don't really care I really like the way it tastes this one's like a little bit sweeter and bitter and this one's like a little bit more like your traditional aperitivo and so you get a really nice melding of those flavors and then you have this guy very dry kind of reminiscent of Martinelli's but not in a bad way at all but also drying the finish I really want to taste it on its
14:31 own now I'm gonna need another little glass to just like kind of see what it tastes like I mean I have an idea now that I tasted it in the cocktail but yes it's dry and lightly sweet it's nice and bubbly and it's it's nice I like it and then in the cocktail it's just nice and bright effervescent everything you want in your no groanie spagliato I like it there you go there it is the Negroni spagliato Eat Your Heart Out Emma D'Arcy all right guys there is three different non-alcoholic cocktails that you can do with these kind of new non-alcoholic Spirits when I was prepping this video I was talking to a friend of mine and I was talking all about these non-alcoholic distilled spirits and they asked me what's the point and then it
15:16 just kind of dawned on me what is the point that is such a poignant question to ask the existence of this industry and the fact that it's exploding right now really really makes us examine what is the point why do we drink we're going to examine why we drink and what the point of drinking cocktails is is the point that alcohol is in it and that we get buzzed and that sometimes we get drunk or is the point that we want to drink something adult and something nuanced what is the point we're going to be doing a lot more of this on Barfly because I want to explore this question and we're going to do it right here on the channel so I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and strap it in for a lot more non-alcoholic cocktails and different types of like mocktails or whatever because we are gonna be going on the ride and hopefully you guys will be going on the ride with us this is the pro tip for today so basically you want
16:03 to make sure that you cut a really beautiful half wheel with an orange and the way to do that is you want to cut the orange from the poles like this so not like this you want to cut it on its poles like this where you see the uh the navel fine it's belly button all right and we're so we're going to cut that like so and then we're going to cut a nice wedge and then you should have those perfect Tropicana looking like orange juice cells in their little housing like that
