Sober Curious, Mindful & Alcohol-Free Drinkers Podcast: Low No Drinker
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Sober Curious, Mindful & Alcohol-Free Drinkers Podcast: Low No Drinker
#70 "Mocktail" The Dirty Word of Alcohol-Free Drinking
Why is the word 'Mocktail' so contentious in the low/no space?
IN THIS WEEK’S EPISODE, WE COVER:
0:59 [A very] Brief history of mocktails
2:55 A mockery
3:40 Second-class drinkers
4:46 Not for the kids menu
7:40 What else can we call them?
8:24 Other terrible terms
9:21 AF mixologists to watch
10:49 But... some people still like it
12:04 A good problem to have
BEST EPISODE TO LISTEN TO NEXT:
#29 The rise and rise of Mocktails with Pooja Sharma-Jones
ALSO MENTIONED:
Derek Brown – The Mindful Drinking Podcast
Camille Vidal – La Maison Wellness
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Hello, hello and welcome to the Low no Drinker podcast, the only twice-weekly podcast helping you find, understand and enjoy the world of low no and light alcohol drinks, drinkers and drinking. I am Denise Hamilton-Mace and I'm the founder, editor and host of all things Low no Drinker. Let's talk about a dirty word. What's the dirty word? The dirty word is mocktail. It is a word that will get the backs up of alcohol-free professionals across the lands. I have had many a guest on the podcast who have had visceral reactions to the word mocktail. They absolutely hate it. On the other hand, there are those out there who swear by it, who have built their businesses around the word. So I thought it'd be fun today to have a quick dive into the word. Why does it get so many people's backs up and perhaps, if you're one of those people, what language we could be using instead. So let's have a little bit of a look about where the word came from, and then I'm going to jump into three reasons that I found as to why people really don't like the word mocktail. So where did it come from?
Speaker 1:From my research, I've managed to discern that the word mocktail is believed and I'm going to put that in strong air quotes, believed to have been first introduced around the early 1900s, around 1914. And it was the newest term for the then named temperance drinks, temperance drinks being non-alcoholic adult mixed drinks. They then got renamed to be mocktails and this was just before the start of prohibition in the US. And so it took off because lots of establishments and watering holes and drinking holes were trying to get people to still come into their venues so that they could still, you know, turn over some profit. Sounds very familiar to what's going on today. Actually, isn't it funny how history repeats itself. Some people claim that the first mocktail was the Shirley Temple. A Shirley Temple is a rather sweet lime, soda, grenadine juice mixed drink. This is one of the issues that people have with the term. I'll come back to that. So yeah, it's claimed by some people that that is the first mocktail. However, if you believe that it was coined around 1914, then it's not possible that the Shirley Temple was the first one, because she wouldn't have been old enough. So it's a fascinating area. If you're interested in it, I encourage you to dive into several Google searches and just like the word cocktail itself, where there are lots of stories about its origin, some very funny. It can be quite a fun exploration if you're into all of that.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the three main reasons that I've seen that people seem to have a problem or a dislike or a disdain for the word mocktail, and the first comes from that first part of the word. It's that mock bit there. So when you look up mock in the dictionary, the description uses phrases like to ridicule or to imitate, to be derisive of the word mock. It implies something those drinks are somehow less legitimate, that they're pair limitations, that they're derivatives of quote-unquote real drinks, and that's clearly not what people who are doing this for a living are striving for, and we'll talk about some of those people in a moment. The second reason that I've noted that people come up with a lot for why they don't like this word is the perception that it generates of being somehow an afterthought, being second place.
Speaker 1:Lots of people who might be choosing not to drink alcohol for any reason for any length of time can often feel marginalized in social situations. They might be very self-conscious, they might not feel that they are being considered as much as everybody else, and then being offered a mock version of what someone else is drinking just reinforces that feeling of being treated as a second class society member or as an afterthought. We're making moj, so we'll make a mock mojito for those people that they're coming. We're making Cosmos we'll make a mock Cosmo if we have to. It doesn't suggest that any thought and any care has been given and we all want to feel thought about right, we all want to feel cared for, so that language really matters, particularly when people are feeling already self-conscious about their choices. Particularly when people are feeling already self-conscious about their choices.
Speaker 1:And finally, a third reason why people might be less than enamored with the name is one that I can definitely relate to, and it is that infantilizing of the drink, particularly when you are in a situation where you have got to a venue and you're having a meal or you're having looking for some drinks and you flip over, and particularly here in the UK. I'm not sure how often this happens in the States, but here in the UK we often take our kids to pubs and restaurants that serve alcohol. It's a very common way to spend some time on the weekend. You go for a Sunday roast in the pub, and so there'll be a special kids menu, normally at the back of the adults menu or following the adults menu. There is nothing worse than looking for your alcohol-free drinks. You've gone through the wines, you've gone through the beers, you've gone through the liqueurs, you've gone through the coffees and there at the back of the menu, under the coffees, just above the kids drinks, in small letters, is the word mocktails and alcohol free beers. It infantilizes you so much and you do not feel like you are about to enjoy an adult drinking experience. You know some places you've been to you can even see they'll have for the kids drinks. They'll have kiddie cocktails, you know, which would obviously be just an apple and an orange juice mixed together. But having your mocktails next to your kiddie cocktails just doesn't engender feelings of confidence in the drink that you're about to get and the experience that it's about to give you. Those are just three of the reasons that I have heard that I have seen frequently from people who really do not like the term mocktails, and there are a lot of people that I've spoken to in this space that feel so strongly about it, and I'm sure that if one of them was with me right now that their list would be considerably longer. But what is it that these drinks that they create are trying to do. That makes them feel so passionate about the use of the word mocktails.
Speaker 1:Modern alcohol-free drinks are sophisticated. They're complex creations. They're created by skilled mixologists who are not just removing alcohol from a classic recipe and filling it up with sugar. They are taking time and effort and they are researching and they're tasting and they're testing and they're combining and they're putting these drinks together to create amazing adult drinking experiences that you tell them, that you are calling out for. These drinks deserve recognition as unique creations in their own rights, on their own merits, rather than being defined as a derivative of an alcohol-free cocktail.
Speaker 1:So if we're not calling them mocktails, then what can we call them instead? Because we do need to be able to highlight these drinks on the menu, right? We need to be able to tell people that they are welcome to drink in our establishments because we've got something that's specifically for them. We can simply call them cocktails and perhaps list the ABV next to them, or we can make a note that these drinks can be served with or without alcohol. But if we want to specifically name that section of our menu, then we could call them non-alcoholic cocktails or alcohol-free cocktails. How about zero-proof cocktails.
Speaker 1:Yes, there are other terms that I have heard people use and I've seen on menus that I'm not sure are that much better than the word mocktail themselves, and that would be things like soft cocktails that doesn't sound great to me. Virgin cocktails I'm not sure who came up with the fact that the word virgin should apply to non-alcoholic cocktails. I'm not sure what the message there or the connotation is. This isn't the podcast to dive into it in great detail. But, yeah, I don't think virgin cocktails is the right message either. Soft drinks list Again, that just says to me this is where you find your Cokes and your lemonades and your kiddie drinks. So I think it's really important that we do make sure that the language that we're using for these drinks speaks to the people that we want to come in and drink them, but not everybody hates the word mocktail.
Speaker 1:I mentioned earlier on that I would give you a list of some of the people in this space who are working really hard to create some amazing alcohol-free cocktail drinks, and I'll make sure all these names are listed in the show notes for you and that would be people like Derek Brown, who is an award-winning bartender turned alcohol-free cocktail connoisseur. He has a podcast as well, which I highly recommend you go and check out. Chris Cardone also out the States does wonderful things with Chris Cardone, also out of the States does wonderful things with alcohol-free cocktails. Here in the UK, though, we couldn't have this conversation without mentioning Lono Drinker's very own Camille Vidal. She's not my Camille Vidal, she is Camille Vidal, also known as Mindfully Cammy on Instagram and various socials. She has the UK's largest selection of low-no and light cocktails for you to go and make at home, with some amazing, amazing recipes which she very kindly allows me to include in Low-No Drinker magazine along with her regular column. And then we've got also people like Dr Cocktail, Nicholas Medicamento Sorry, nicholas, if I got your name wrong. He'll be on the show soon so he can correct it for me. Live on air and the Midnight Mudler.
Speaker 1:So we've got some amazing people who are working really hard to make adult, non-alcoholic cocktails, and a lot of those people wouldn't want you to call the drinks that they make mocktails, but there are some people who don't have an issue with the word at all. One person in particular always springs to mind when I have this conversation, and that is the ever, ever so lovely Millie Gooch, who is the founder of the Sober Girl Society, and I remember having a conversation with Millie and Camille and several other people in our space, and Millie made a really important point, and her point was that, whilst we as an industry might not necessarily love the term mocktails, it's the word that people are using to find us, it's the search term that's being put into Google, that's being thrown into chat, gpt, that's being bandied around all corners of the interweb for people to find the drinks that they are looking for. And if we as an industry turn our noses up at it and start to become too judgmental and start to dictate too much what words people are and aren't allowed to use, which words are and aren't cool, then we run the risk, as Millie rightly pointed out, of alienating those people who are just using the language that they understand to find the drinks and the places that can help them live the life that they want to live. So, whilst the terminology does matter, and whilst it is important that we recognise that alcohol-free adult cocktails are not derivatives of alcohol-full cocktails, that they are intentionally crafted, deep, sophisticated adult beverages, them, the most important thing is that we make them available. I, for one, think it's amazing that we are now at the stage where this gets to be a debate, where there is so much interest in this world and this way of drinking that there is enough reason for it to have been written about in broadsheets and on blogs and in magazines and on podcasts, and it's what I call a really good problem to have.
Speaker 1:So I'm curious are you pro-mocktail or anti-mocktail? When you hear the word, does it conjure up images of cheesy beach holidays with multicolored layered drinks? Or do you just feel that you're in a place where you know you can get something that serves you for the way that you want to drink? Let me know? Respond to any one of my emails, which, as you know by now, you can easily jump onto by heading to the Low no Drinker website, downloading one of my wonderful free gifts and getting on the newsletter and just hitting reply to any of my messages. Whilst you're at the website, I highly encourage you to head on over to lonodrinkercom forward slash, subscribe and start your free seven day subscription to Lono Drinker magazine and you can get access to every single issue of Loner Drinker magazine that's ever been published, completely for free for seven days. That's it from me for this week. I said it'd be a short one Until next week. Cheers to a life less intoxicated.
