It’s Dry January darling – time to drink water until you pass away from boredom. Just kidding. These days, dry January enthusiasts can spend the whole month sampling from an incredible array of zero alcohol products and never get bored. The selection has boomed in recent years.
Here’s a stunner of a cocktail to enjoy this January – specifically created with alcohol-free sparkling. Invented by cocktail genius John deBary, author of Drink What You Want and Food52’s resident drinks expert (check out his Vegan Grasshopper). He says, “A lot of complexity comes from the jasmine-grapefruit-green tea syrup.” He explains that the delicate flavours are key here, because there is no alcohol to overpower the subtlety.
Now if you’re wondering where to get booze-free champagne – we’ve got you covered. Clearsips is in the store this weekend sampling from their selection of wines and pre-mixed cocktails. All with zero alcohol content. Wine that tastes like wine, not fruit juice, because it’s actually made with wine – they just took out the alcohol.
Clearsips will be sampling Oddbird Spumante, L’Arjolle Merlot Grenache, and Edna’s Paloma on Saturday from noon to 3pm. For wine, especially sparkling, people are mystified as to how they make it taste like the real thing. Clearsips starts with a really high-quality base wine before removing the alcohol. This leaves the alcohol-removed wine with all the same wonderful aromas and notes as the base wine, making it taste like the wines we’re all familiar with.
The syrup is super easy to make, but you’ll want to get it started the day before. Warning, once you try this incredible syrup you’re going to be hooked. Better load up on grapefruits when you’re in the store.
John deBary’s Reviver Royale
4 oz champagne
1 oz of jasmine, green tea, grapefruit syrup (recipe below)
.5 oz of fresh squeezed lime juice
Mix and serve
Grapefruit, Jasmine & Green Tea Syrup
2 medium grapefruits
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 green tea bag
1 “blooming” jasmine tea ball
1 cup chilled filtered water
- Wash the grapefruits thoroughly with soap, water, and a scrubby sponge. Towel dry. Use a vegetable peeler to peel the grapefruit zest into strips. Combine the peels and sugar in a resealable plastic or silicone bag. Compress the air out and let sit for 12 to 16 hours at room temperature, massaging the mixture every few hours to extract the oils from the peels. You’ll know it’s ready when the peels are translucent and the sugar is gooey.
- Meanwhile, combine the tea, jasmine ball, and water in a small container and let sit for 12 hours in the refrigerator. After 12 hours remove the solids and let the infusion reach room temperature.
- Stir together the tea infusion and the grapefruit sugar mixture, then strain through a fine-mesh filter or sieve. This syrup will keep in the refrigerator for up to 1 week, or 4 weeks if frozen.
