Raising a glass to non-alcoholic drinks
Australian food guide GoodFood recently published an article about the rise of non-alcoholic beverages in the world of local bars & restaurants and the increasing relevance that these drinks are obtaining for chefs and professionals in the sector. The article, by Amy Cooper, highlights how important it is for new gastronomy gurus to provide new and inclusive alternatives to alcohol to their customers.
Bars
It starts with the example of Maybe Sammy, Sydney’s famous cocktail bar currently at number 11 on the World’s 50 Best Bars list, in which, “Non-alcoholic drinks now command equal billing with their hard counterparts”
Andrea Gualdi, co-owner of the venue, says that “Our clientele don’t necessarily all want to drink, but they still expect an elegant, adult cocktail with the same theatre and experience.”
The article makes it clear that “As the non-alcoholic movement continues unabated, serious operators are joining the party”
Amy notes that “Pre-lockdown, alcohol-free bars were proliferating worldwide. In London, there’s Redemption and Brewdog AF; NYC’s Getaway and pop-up Listen Bar are zero-ABV magnets for the beautiful and hip (Snoop Dogg asked Listen to name a cocktail after him), and – perhaps most astonishingly – Dublin has an alcohol-free pub called The Virgin Mary.”
The days are gone when your sheepish request for zero-ABV prompted a raised eyebrow and a sugary, juvenile drink.
Instead, bartenders at the top of their game relish the technical and creative challenges of achieving balance and palate weight without booze.
Says Gualdi: “To make something good without alcohol, a bartender needs more skill. You really have to understand flavours.”
“Our clientele don’t necessarily all want to drink, but they still expect an elegant, adult cocktail with the same theatre and experience.”
Restaurants
Then Amy tells us about Capitano, a popular Melbourne Italian bar and restaurant, which includes non-alcoholic mixes that sparkle amid classic cocktails on its Menu. Manager Darren Leaney is finding that non-alcoholic drinks such as his Grove Collins, a fruity and fresh combo of Seedlip Grove, passionfruit, lemon and soda, sit comfortably among his summer menu’s booze stars.
“If you’ve got good non-alcoholic drinks, people will come,” he says. “There is thought and process going into these drinks; layers of complexity.”
On its side, at Sydney’s PS40, co-owner Michael Chiem structures his drink list around taste, with no segregation for non-alcoholic beverages.
“When we create all of our drinks, the starting point isn’t the base liquor,” says Chiem. “The focus is an ingredient, or a culinary technique.”
Chefs
Where there are celebrity chefs, there are almost certainly non-alcoholic beverages too, at Melbourne’s Attica and Lume, the Brae in Birregurra, the Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld, the Ten Minutes by Tractor on Main Ridge or the Momofuku Seiobo in Sydney.
Momofuku Seiobo was an early adopter in 2012, and the seven non-alc pairings echo chef Paul Carmichael’s Caribbean influences.
Attica’s tasting menu can be matched with eight house-made fresh juices, teas or infusions, sodas and non-alc cocktails, some made with cooking by-products.
“If you’ve got good non-alcoholic drinks, people will come”
Head sommelier Dom Robinson relishes the creative freedom these drinks allow. “While wine is a fixed beverage to work with, we have complete control over our non-alcoholic beverages in terms of flavour, aroma, acid, texture, sweetness.”
At the Ides in Collingwood, chef-owner Peter Gunn’s small team all collaborate on the restaurant’s non-alcoholic drinks menu, with its chief architect, maitre d’ Louise Naimo, raiding the kitchen regularly for inspiration
In addition to their traditional ingredients, beverage makers turn to an ever-expanding ‘toolbox’ of alternative distillates, including UK pioneer Seedlip, and a growing variety of local beverages, including the wine alternative NON, co- Created by former Noma chef William Wade, and alternative spirits Lyre’s, ALTD and Brunswick Aces.
Products
The latter, created in 2018 by a group of six Melbourne neighbours, personifies the non-alcoholic movement’s inclusive philosophy.
“A couple of us suddenly couldn’t drink for various reasons,” says CEO Stephen Lawrence. “And for us it was this real moment: how can you suddenly not be part of the group because you’re not drinking?”
Their answer was Brunswick Aces’ (a drink made by distilling non-alcoholic botanicals), Hearts and Spades.
Last year, the company also launched two full-booze gins.
Says Lawrence: “Both drinks contain the same botanicals, just distilled in different ways. So I can make the same cocktails with either. If you’re drinking and I’m not, we can experience the same flavour nuances.”
Another non-alcoholic product exciting restaurants and home drinkers alike is Sobah, an Aboriginal-owned craft beer made on Queensland’s Gold Coast by Clinton Schultz and his wife Lozen.
When Schultz stopped drinking, he was frustrated by not being able to get a decent-tasting non-alcoholic adult drink. “I was paying $5 for a glass of soda water with a piece of lemon.”
Schultz, began to experiment. “I’m from a chef background and know that beer is one of the most versatile platforms for building flavours and textures,” he says.
Sobah was an instant hit. In the past year, production has expanded from 50 litres at a time to 20,000-litre batches.
Success
It’s just one of the success stories that populate this brave new world of non-alcoholic beverages.
Says Darren Leaney of Capitano: “There are no rules, no pre-established recipes. You can look to classics for inspiration, but you’re always bringing it back to flavour. There’s huge scope to play around.”
Adds Michael Chiem, “It used to be that when you were missing booze, you were missing excitement. But now the customer has so much to explore, while the bartender has all these extra creative tools.”
The article ends by recommending seven essential alcohol-free brands to try, including Seedlip and Lyre’s that you will find at The Blue Dolphin Store.
“It used to be that when you were missing booze, you were missing excitement. But now the customer has so much to explore, while the bartender has all these extra creative tools.”
It is clear that the Australian restaurant world is ahead when it comes to providing non-alcoholic alternatives to its customers. We hope that when the sector recovers a bit in Europe, their example will be followed and it will be common to find our favorite non-alcoholic beverages in the most famous bars and restaurants.
If you want to read the full article, click here.
