Last Updated on February 17, 2025
No/low alcohol drinks for all occasions
When I first tried out an alcohol-free lifestyle over a decade ago, what I missed most was champagne for celebrations, G&T in summer and a glass of red wine with dinner. There were few substitutes back then and the best alternative to gin was a drink that tasted like peas. The summers were not great as far as beverages went. I drank a lot of tonic water.
Fast forward many years and the alcohol-free world has transformed beyond what I could have imagined. Now the market has expanded with the total UK no/low market expected to have more than doubled in 2024 versus 2023. This is partly driven by the youth market which creates a feedback loop. The more that delicious drinks are available to young people the more likely they are to consume them. So, it has proved if the no-alcohol beer sales are anything to go by. According to preliminary results, no-alcohol beer grew 20% in 2024 vs 2023.
In the spirit of Dry January, I began to taste a number of drinks on the market to expand my own horizons and to encourage the idea that an alcohol-free life need not be one of deprivation and feeling like a lemon while everyone else is knocking back the booze. The one aspect that takes getting used to is being the only sober person in a group. It sometimes makes one realise that not everyone is riveting company when you have not had a few. But I have found with both friends and family, that once there is a no-alcohol substitute on offer, increasingly people will join you either because they are driving or because they are also trying to reduce their intake.
Many people are confused about the difference between no and low-alcohol drinks. No alcohol (0%) drinks have never used alcohol to craft their blend. These include natural fruits, herbs, spices and other botanicals. Some other drinks (like 0% wines) have been de-alcoholised down to 0%. Low-alcohol drinks cannot be higher than 0.5% ABV (alcohol by volume) in order to legally register as non-alcoholic. Some of these beverages have been de-alcoholised.
So if for health reasons, religious adherence or personal preference, you wish to avoid drinks that previously contained alcohol, you may want to stick to the fruit and botanical-based beverages that have never been fermented into alcohol and then de-alcoholised. Bear in mind though that ripe bananas can have 0.2 – 0.4 % ABV.
New London Light
Back to the gin. Produced in Devon, New London Light is a collection of non-alcoholic spirits and aperitifs that I can really get behind. Its punchy flavour and good mouthfeel made me feel that there could be alcohol in the glass. So many alcohol-free drinks lack the necessary mouthfeel and as a result are rather ‘thin’. When I read up about the manufacturing process, I discovered that the distillates and natural flavours are stabilised with the use of kombucha.
New London Light ‘First Light’ is inspired by gin-making principles and has a distinctive botanical note with ginger lingering long on the palate. I happen to love ginger in all its forms, so this suited me very well. If you don’t like ginger you may want to try one of the others in the range – Aegean Sky (bitter citrus and olive) or Midnight Sun (wild coastal berries, fresh kelp and pine). It is obvious that we shop with our eyes and New London Light is attractively bottled in a frosted glass bottle.
A good quality mixer pays its way in my view, so I used Fever Tree tonic water. I was pleased to have tried this brand as it is new to me and I will certainly be enjoying it when the weather improves and G&T is back on the menu.
New London Light is available online at newlondonlight.com and sells for £25 for 70cl.
The Pathfinder
A brand very popular in the US and now available in the UK is The Pathfinder Hemp and Root, a fermented and distilled hemp-based liquid. It harks back to the alchemical processes of the apothecaries and medicinal elixirs of the 1830s when doctors began prescribing hemp-based concoctions for all sorts of complaints from cramps to hysteria. It sounded rather mysterious when I read the labels on the square bottle which informed me that they distil hempseed and the base liquid is blended with an alchemy of wormwood, angelica root, ginger, sage, juniper, saffron, orange peel and wild-crafted Douglas-fir and natural terpenes.
I followed the recipe for The Pathfinder Spritz, the signature cocktail, which involves mixing with some lemon juice and topping up with soda water. It had a lovely rust-coloured hue which looked attractive in the glass. The first taste I encountered was lemon which made me wonder if I had added too much but I had followed the suggested recipe on the bottle. This one has a less rounded mouthfeel than the gin-inspired drinks but what it brings to the glass is a pleasant bitter note that feels grown-up. It is certainly very refreshing, and I would be happy to serve this to friends. It contains less than 0.5% alcohol or, as the company says, less than a banana.
The Pathfinder is currently distributed in the UK via a range of companies. Find out about where to buy it by looking on the website. It sells for between £29.75 and £34.99 per bottle.
Everleaf
I was very pleased to receive a three-bottle selection of Everleaf, a non-alcoholic aperitif that I recently enjoyed in a London bar. Everleaf Marine is described as crisp and refreshing, Forest as complex and bittersweet and Mountain as vibrant and aromatic. The website has a comprehensive list of cocktail recipes that will see you through the summer and beyond. That said, I was happy with my mocktail in the depths of winter, which I enjoyed having returned from a bracing walk.
I tried the Everleaf recipe of the month which is Everleaf orange blossom and saffron forest spritz. This used Everleaf Forest with tonic and garnished with orange slices. This has a lovely golden hue and is spicy on the nose. The flavours are complex – saffron, vanilla and orange blossom so there is a lot going on in this glass. The flavour is reminiscent of marzipan but also bittersweet.
For my taste, I preferred the less complex Everleaf Bergamot Spritz which mixes Everleaf Marine with tonic and lime slices. This took me into G&T territory and was crisply refreshing as well as slightly spicy. It includes kelp, bergamot and tropical sea buckthorn and is definitely one for my summer collection.
The founder of Everleaf is a conservation biologist and a bar owner, an unusual pairing. In searching for a non-alcoholic alternative to spirits which he had been asked for in the bar, he turned to nature and began to research plants and experimented with methods including macerating, dehydrating and extracting in order to achieve a balance of complex flavours and the perfect texture.
Everleaf sells for £22 a bottle or an Everleaf Collection pack of three flavours for £59.
Luscombe’s Damascene Rose Bubbly
Luscombe is a well-known brand based in Devon and I have long enjoyed their range of fruit based drinks. I don’t usually think of a fruit drink as an alternative to alcohol – although goodness knows how often I have been relegated to an unpleasant orange juice out of a tetrapak at a cocktail party. Luscombe’s Damascene Rose Bubbly puts a new shine on non-alcoholic celebrations with a drink created from organic Damascene rose petals, Muscat grapes and Sicilian lemon juice. The very description had my mouth watering and I lost no time in trying it out on my family.
As it was, a few days after receiving four bottles of this refreshingly delicious drink, I had my crew over as one had secured a plum job. Since Luscombe is marketing this drink as an alternative to Champagne, I passed around the champagne flutes filled with pink bubbles and I don’t think anyone missed the alcohol. It had a lovely hue that looked like a sparkling rosé, this one is certainly coming up roses. It was deeply floral on the nose and tasted quite sweet with a back note reminiscent of ginger that added depth. The rose flavour was dominant. Here is a drink I will happily serve again and am looking forward to summer lunches where it would be a welcome option. I’m saying ‘no thanks’ to that unpleasant orange juice forever more.
Luscombe Damascene Rose Bubbly sells a box of 12 x 270ml bottles for £26.50
Athletic Brewing Co.
Full disclosure here – I was never an enthusiastic beer drinker in my alcohol imbibing days so am not best placed to assess the worthiness of the Athletic Brewing Co. range of beers, made in the US and on sale in the UK since 2021. However, I have three men in my family who like a pint so I got them together to taste test for me. I had a taste too and my experience of these beers reminded me of a pub I once went to in Bruges where I tasted a number of floral beers, the flavours of which were new to me.
I found the Athletic beers to be quite floral. The blue tin, Run Wild IPA was a bit heavy for my taste (but my sons like an IPA) and I preferred the lighter yellow tin, Upside Dawn Golden which was like a Blonde Belgian beer, with an intense hops flavour but was also floral. This is one I would happily drink if I was at a BBQ or having a sundowner on the beach. In 2024, Athletic Brewing Co. became Arsenal FC’s first official non-alcoholic beer partner. No doubt my son, who practically lives at the Emirates stadium where the Run Wild IPA is sold, would drink them there. At home, the men all declared the beers ‘delicious’. Athletic Brewing Co. beers are 0.5% ABV.
Athletic Brewing Co. is available at Ocado and Tesco stores and www.drydrinker.com
Cordoníu Zero
An alcohol-free sparkling wine is high up on my list of must-haves because I miss bubbles for birthdays, welcoming guests and other celebrations that always call for popping the cork in my household. I like to find an alternative for myself along with any guests who are not wanting alcohol. Cordoníu makes a very good Cava, which I used to enjoy when I was drinking alcohol, so I was keen to try this zero-alcohol version.
I gathered my tasting team and we opened a bottle before settling down to a roast chicken dinner. The general consensus was that this was a class above the noseccos that we had all tasted on previous occasions. We all thought that it was the closest we had come to a non-alcoholic bubbly that tasted like sparkling wine – rather than fizzy grape juice. It has a gentle hue and soft bubbles. We drank some neat and then as part of a mocktail (see below) which we also liked very much. This is a versatile drink and will be on my re-order list this summer. There is also a Rosé which is perfect for those times I want an aperitif.
Cordoníu Zero, Alcohol-Free Sparkling Wine is widely available.
Giffard Alcohol-Free Liqueur
Giffard is a company with a long history of making fruit-based liqueurs that can be used to create wonderful cocktails. They also have a range of non-alcoholic fruity options including Fleur de Sureau – Elderflower – and Pamplemousse Rose – Grapefruit. Other flavours include pineapple and ginger. Giffard’s non-alcoholic range is made by macerating fruits and plants in wine vinegar which produces great aroma, an intense flavour and reduced sugar levels.
I experimented with the Elderflower flavour which has a gorgeous bouquet and a lovely colour. I would certainly use this as the base for many a mocktail. My tasting team tried it first topped up with soda water. We found this to be rather reminiscent of a well-known sparkling elderflower drink – which is not a negative comment, but rather that we might just crack open one of those bottles which require no additional mixers.
What we all really liked was a base of Giffard Alcohol-Free Elderflower liqueur mixed with Cordoníu Zero and finished with a splash of tonic water. This changed the profile, reducing the sweetness and adding a more interesting flavour that only tonic water can. We all agreed that we would be happy to be served this mocktail. I should point out that my tasting team are all alcohol drinkers so I was very pleased with this result.
Giffard Alcohol-Free Liqueur is available at numerous outlets.
Moderato wines
Non-alcoholic wines are catching up with the spirit and beer market. On a recent trip to Paris, I noticed a non-alcoholic wine bar in the 11th arrondissement which was sadly shut over Christmas so I didn’t have the chance to visit. However, it made me think that if the French market for non-alcoholic wine is growing then the future looks bright.
I was sent two French non-alcoholic wines to try by Moderato, a French 0% wine brand that has recently launched at Majestic Wines. Starting with a vinted wine, either natural wine aromas or aromas from the original wine are re-introduced following de-alcoholisation. There are two wines available through Majestic Wines – a red wine, Moderato Cuvee Revolutionaire Colombard and a white wine, Moderato Cuvee Revolutionaire Merlot-Tannat.
Available from Majestic Wines, both bottles sell for £13.99 each.
This selection of No/Low drinks highlights how much things have changed. If you prefer to avoid alcohol, you now have a real choice. Do you have any favourite no/low alcohol drinks? If you are feeling adventurous, why not try making my pomegranate and apple mocktail – it works very well with Codorniu Zero!
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