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Alcohol free cocktails, or “mocktails" as they are sometimes
called, are quite trendy in spas and fitness clubs, but they are present on the
menu lists of many bars too. As people
become more and more aware of the importance of a healthy living, this doesn’t
come up as a surprise. And bartenders
agree: bartending without alcohol is as fun and fulfilling.
To create an alcohol free drink that wows the clients is not always an easy
task. Some juices just don’t match
together and sometimes the wrong blends (different juices with milk for
example) have undesired secondary effects (stomach acidity, stomach ache, etc).
What bartenders learnt is that pregnant women and drivers who still want to
look cool particularly prefer alcohol-free cocktails. Because when they are bartending they use traditional cocktail
glasses, it’s hard for the outsiders to say whether you drink an alcoholic or
non-alcoholic cocktail. As you’ll learn
below you can even “fake" a margarita and no one can tell the difference
(unless they taste the drink).
A very tasty mocktail to enjoy Saturday nights (or any other night, for that matter)
is the Saturday Night Shake, made of half a cup peanut butter, half cup
chocolate syrup, 1-cup cold milk and 2 scoops vanilla ice cream. The ingredients need to be mixed in a
blender for a few seconds. Then pour
into a chilled highball glass and enjoy.
And if you love your margaritas, don’t worry: the bartenders came up with a
Mocktail Margarita! You’ll need lime juice,
lemonade concentrate, confectioner’s sugar, crushed ice, club soda, lime slices
and coarse salt. The mocktail is not so
easy to prepare and it needs time to reach to its fullest aroma. Mix one-cup confectioner’s sugar with 5-6
cups crushed ice, 12 oz lemon juice and 12 oz lime juice and then freeze the
mixture for about 30 minutes (from time to time stir the mixture, to prevent it
from freezing into hard blocks of ice).
After 30 minutes, take 2 cups of this mixture and pour it into a
blender, add 1-cup soda club and mix for a few seconds. Prepare your margarita glass by dipping the
rim in coarse salt, as you do when you prepare traditional margaritas. Then pour the blended mix and garnish with
lime slice. Well, this is not so
simple, it is time-consuming but it is also very tasty and refreshing; the
perfect drink for a hot summer night. Plus,
by drinking it instead of traditional margaritas, you avoid those harsh morning
after. Everyone knows that margaritas
give the nastiest hangovers.
Last, but not least, here’s a bartending alternative to the famous Bloody Mary:
Virgin Mary. Made of 3 ounces of tomato
juice, ½ ounce of lemon juice, a drop of Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper and
Tabasco sauce plus a celery stalk to garnish the mix. Pour the ingredients over ice in a highball glass mix well and
add spices to enhance the taste. If the
drink is cold enough you’ll not even miss the taste of the vodka.
One bartending tip: the Virgin Mary is a great hangover remedy. The mixture is rich in vitamin C, both from
tomatoes and lemon juice. The drink
will help stop the urge for more alcohol.
Don’t drink Bloody Mary, as many advise. The thing that helps cure the hangover is the tomato juice and
not more alcohol. When you have a
hangover, if you drink more alcohol, you only stress your liver.
Michael Russell
Your
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