Mocktail hour
Designated driver? Taking a break from booze? No problem. Australia’s best bars are mixing alcohol-free cocktails with cheer.
THERE WAS once a time when abstaining from liquor at the Friday-night after-work drinks meant sipping an uninspiring fruit juice. Then mixologists at fine-diners began to include alcohol-free matches for tasting menus and Seedlip released the world’s first non-alcoholic spirit. Now, any bar worth its saltrimmed glasses is offering nondrinkers creations that are equal in appearance and flavour to their intoxicating counterparts.
033 IXL Long Bar
We’d be tempted to order The
Healthy Option at breakfast – if only Hobart’s IXL Long Bar in The Henry Jones Art Hotel (thehenryjones.com) was open then. The bartenders add citrus oleo saccharum (made using peel muddled with sugar to extract the oils) and Angostura bitters to charred-kale soda, finishing with a dusting of kale powder. It’s virtue in a glass – and, thankfully, delicious.
034 Hennessy
The signature drink at Hennessy bar in Adelaide’s Mayfair Hotel (mayfairhotel.com.au), Honey
Trap, uses nectar from beehives kept on the rooftop. The spiked version includes vodka but the virgin option is a ginger and honey shrub (cocktail-speak for a sweetened vinegar-based syrup) shaken with lemon juice and sugar then drizzled with raw honey.
035 Aloha Bar and Dining
This Tiki bar (alohabarand dining.com.au), in Broadbeach on the Gold Coast, is the spot for a Virgin Island, a combination of fresh pineapple juice, coconut water, coconut purée, lime juice and housemade orgeat (a syrup created from almonds and orange-flower water), served in a coconut.
036 Three Blue Ducks
“One of my favourite smells is mulled wine,” says Ben Fulcher, bar manager at Three Blue Ducks (threeblueducks.com), which
overlooks the Brisbane River. “I wanted to re-create that but with a tropical feel.” So for the Ducks Spiced Orange Punch
he adds a spiced orange juice reduction to fresh orange juice, tops it with soda then serves it in a glass rimmed with cinnamon sugar.
037 Charlie Parker’s
At this basement speakeasy in Sydney’s Paddington (merivale.com), the barkeeps whip up the Wakame using Seedlip’s floral, herbaceous Garden 108, wakame-infused verjuice and a touch of sugar to create a fine imitation of a Dirty Martini, garnished with a lemon twist. Order oysters to go with it.
038 Bloodwood
The clever team at Bloodwood (bloodwoodnewtown.com), in Newtown, Sydney, has given an Italian classic a booze-free makeover. The Virgin Negroni is just a touch of soda added to chinotto syrup made in-house from orange and lemon peels, non-alcoholic red and white wines, star-anise and cinnamon.