The social drinker

Dry January will be over on Friday. If you really did abstain for the past four weeks, you are probably enjoying the glow that everybody is remarking on. How to toast the end of a month of abstinence without losing these benefits? A bottle of low-alcohol wine, a perry cider, or a low-alcohol cocktail seems like a sensible answer.

Generally speaking, wines from cold climates are lower in alcohol than their southern cousins. My go-to low-alcohol wine is Gruner Veltliner from Austria. It’s a lovely white, with green apple and citrus flavours, as well as a hint of pepper. Weighing in at around 11.5pc alcohol, Gruner Veltliner is fresh and summery — the perfect antidote to the early days of February. Another easyon-the-system white is Vinho Verde from northern Portugal. Light and fresh, this wine often reminds the drinker of grapefruit or lime and, of course, summer.

While it’s not common in supermarkets, many good off-licences sell thirst-quenching apple or pear cider from Normandy, with improbably low alcohol levels of around 2.5pc. This is a great drink when you want to ingest almost no alcohol, but don’t want an alcohol-free beer.

Of course, you may want to celebrate your abstinence with something a little stronger. In that case, you could head to a supermarket that still has the remnants of their Christmas stock and a buy a bottle of white port. Aldi has an excellent white port at the moment called Maynards — it is worth stocking up on this under-rated drink, which is almost impossible to find at any other time of the year.

A classic low-alcohol drink that is very popular in Portugal is a Portonic. This combines one measure of white port with two measures of tonic water, and it’s garnished with a sprig of mint. It would be a wonderful way to toast the end of Dry January.