Thanksgiving and the holiday season call for special sips at parties and dinners. But not everyone drinks alcohol, and it's a little sad to think of drinking water or apple juice with your turkey. Never fear, though — there is a growing space of sophisticated, grown-up, yet alcohol-free drinks that are just as good (really!) as bubbly. Here are our favorites.
The highest recommendation we can give to a nonalcoholic product right now would go to White Jasmine Sparkling Tea from Golden Star Tea (see our review here). This is a slightly fermented, fizzy jasmine tea that pairs beautifully with food, and that has a lot of the complexity of wine. Honestly we like it as much as champagne; even for those who drink alcohol, this is a total treat. It's about $10 a bottle, which when compared to wine is not bad at all.
Several other sodas that we have recommended include GuS, DRY, and Vignette Wine Country sodas. Wine Country is especially interesting to us, since it uses wine grapes to make a light, dry, fizzy sip that seems like it would be very food-friendly. We also love the subtle, barely-scented DRY soda; the Juniper and Kumquat are especially promising for pairing with holiday foods.
Online Sources
• Golden Star White Jasmine Sparkling Tea, $51.80 (plus shipping) for a case of 4 730 ML bottles. Also available in Northern California and Pacific NW Whole Foods, plus some limited locations in NYC.
• Vignette Wine Country Sodas, $28,50 (+$16.95 shipping) for a 12-pack of 12-ounce bottles. Also available in these locations.
• DRY Soda 12-Pack
, $19 (plus shipping) for a case of 12 12-ounce bottles. Also available nationally at specialty and gourmet stores.
• Grown-up Sodas (GuS) - Distributed nationwide at Target, Whole Foods, and The Fresh Market.
Here are a few more non-alcoholic drinks, some of which you can make yourself.
• Buckler Non-Alcoholic Beer - Highest rated NA beer we've tried.
• Non-Alcoholic Cocktails that Impress - A great roundup of fun NA cocktails, with recipes.
• Rhubarb Soda - Syrup and soda.
• Blackberry Elderflower Spritzer with Mint - This is quite summery, but there are other options for homemade holiday spritzers. We have to say that fizzy water with a few cranberries and a slice of lime is pretty nice.
There are a lot of creative options, even without buying one of the recommendations above. What non-alcoholic holiday sips do you serve and drink?
(Images: Golden Star Tea; Vignette Wine Country Soda; DRY Soda)
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Thanks for this post! As someone who is a teetoller (sp?) I appreciate it greatly.
Dry Soda (lavender and oddly, lemongrass) are incredibly delicious. I have an addiction to the lavender dry soda. It is crisp, dry, and not too sweet.
Is fermented tea really nonalcoholic? Doesn't the fermentation process produce ethanol? I would love it if someone knew more about this and would post.
The Golden Star Tea bottle looks beautiful.
I like sparkling mineral water; you can add a squeeze of citrus if desired, or a splash of cranberry juice. It's refreshing and inexpensive.
@joydreamz, I believe on the Golden Star site they have a note about the tea being 0.5% ABV.
The Dry Sodas are wonderful! The lavender one is especially wonderful, and the juniper berry is very reminiscent of a gin and tonic. The vanilla is also lovely and probably would pair quite well with all the starchy foods. It smells of vanilla but does not taste sweet (in my opinion) as a soda would. I was not the biggest fan of the GuS ones because they were sweeter than the Dry Sodas.
Good to hear praises about the Golden Star, i will have to pick up a bottle to try.
Bless you! I'm pregnant and today while I was at the store ordering my Thanksgiving turkey I looked at the rows and rows of sparkling apple cider and thought, "Sigh. This is what I'm going to be drinking on Thanksgiving day when everyone else is having a lovely glass of Pinot." Now I can go and explore some new -- safe! -- beverages.
I have tried that rhubarb DRY soda, and it really was not very good. Smelled amazing, but no flavor.
And I don't get this drinking during the holidays thing...we have never done that. We just always have tea or coffee or whatever.
the golden star tea is DELICIOUS though 15 bucks a bottle at the whole foods i work at!
Yeah, the rhubarb dry soda is not tasty - it tastes like earth to me. I told someone that and they thought it was crazy until they tasted it :) But don't let that discourage you from trying the other flavors.
I do love the Wine Country sodas, but I'd have to say that they're not dry at all -- they're actually very sweet (even sweeter than some grape juices). But, if you like that (like I do!), they're delish!
Even though I am now of age, I still love Martinelli's sparkling apple cidar for my Thanksgiving beverage.
Inexpensive, widely available, and delicious.
I love the golden star sparkling tea. So decadent!
I love the Vanilla Bean Dry soda. It's a very light flavor, and very low in calories and sugar. Add some berries, and maybe some berry syrup to sweeten it up a bit if preferred, oh, that sounds delicious right now. The other options sound great too, but wanted to put my two cents in on the Dry soda.