So you’ve decided to give up alcohol for Dry January – congratulations. This means you’ll be looking to replace your favourite gin with exciting (and delicious) non-alcoholic drinks. AKA a drink with all the elements of a great alcoholic one, but with none of the nasty side-effects – goodbye, ‘hangxiety’.
Whatever your reasons for trying non-alcoholic drinks and favouring the alcohol free life – whether the Zoom happy hours and Quarantinis have transformed you from a social drinker to a every-night-in-front-of-the-news drinker, and you’re worried you might have a “problem”, or you’re pregnant or started on some new medication that doesn’t mix well with alcohol – there are tonnes of benefits to turning sober, if even only for a month.
According to research published in the British Medical Journal, a month off alcohol lowers blood pressure, reduces diabetes risk, lowers cholesterol and reduces levels of cancer-related proteins in the blood. Alcohol can dehydrate you, impact your immune system, transform your skin (not in a good way), seriously interfere with your sleep and even effect your mental health. Basically, it’s not kale.
Whichever way you look at it, it’s hard to avoid how alcohol really makes us feel: terrible. No, it’s not just you. You are not alone in wanting to break-up with booze. Dry January is a movement. 6.5 million people took on the biggest Dry January ever last year – up from 3.9 million in 2020 – after re-evaluating their home drinking habits during lockdown.
So whether you’re trying to cut down on your alcohol intake for the sake of your mental health, you’re just trying to be healthier or you’re simply taking part in Dry January as a bit of a challenge, getting clued up on the best non-alcoholic drinks and alcohol-free tipples is PARAMOUNT. ‘Cos when you’re out at a fancy dinner or you want something refreshing to sip on after a long, hard day at the office, a zero alcohol alternative will stop you from craving the hard stuff. Alcohol-free drinks are there to kick cravings to the curb and fill the void left in your heart. Plus, they actually taste pretty great.
Which are the best non-alcoholic drinks?
Luckily, numerous drinks companies are jumping on the back of the nation’s thirst for sobriety. The world’s largest drinks brand, Diageo, bought out the world’s first distilled non-alcoholic spirit, Seedlip, while the likes of Heineken and Budweiser have released low-alcohol iterations of their best sellers. There’s non-alcoholic bubbly, alcohol-free apple cider and low-alcohol beers.
Oddbird has three premium sparkling non-alcoholic wines which are set to shake up the premium No/Low wine category, while High Point Drinks from Cornwall has launched the world’s first premium non-alcoholic fermented aperitif and digestif, High Point Ruby Aperitif and High Point Amber Digestif. Even Made in Chelsea’s Spencer Matthews released a non-alcoholic gin with a promise of no hangover. Yes, really.