How To Navigate Alcohol And Mocktails When You’re Gluten-Free

If you’re gluten-free and unsure how alcohol fits into your life — whether you drink occasionally, rarely, or not at all — this episode is for you. 

Drinking gluten-free can be confusing, and the risks aren’t always about what’s in your glass. Today, I’m sharing what I’ve learned about drinking safely while gluten-free, including alcoholic and non-alcoholic options, real-life risks people don’t talk about, and how to make choices that support your body and your health. 

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Get your exclusive discount for our listeners at theglutenfreeengineer.com/findmeglutenfree
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Transcript

Welcome And Safety Disclaimer

Carrie Saunders 0:00

Quick reminder before we get started on this episode. This podcast is based on my personal experiences and isn't medical advice. If you're gluten-free and unsure how alcohol fits into your life, whether you drink occasionally, rarely, or not at all, this episode is for you. Drinking gluten-free can be confusing and the risks aren't always about what's in your glass. Today I'm sharing what I've learned about drinking safely while gluten-free, including alcoholic and non-alcoholic options. I want to talk about real-life risks people don't talk about and how to make choices that support your body and your health. Let's dive in. Welcome to the Gluten Free Engineer Podcast. I'm your host, Kiri Saunders. In 2011, I was diagnosed with celiac disease, a moment that changed everything. But I was determined not to let it hold me back. With my two engineering degrees, I set out to reverse engineer the gluten-free lifestyle, breaking down recipes, safety tips, travel hacks, and everything in between to rebuild a life I love. Whether you have celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or simply choose to live gluten-free, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we simplify the gluten-free lifestyle, make it fun, and prove that you don't have to miss out on anything. Welcome back to the show. Today's episode is about alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, and I want to help you be safe no matter which way you choose when you're in social situations that could involve alcohol or a non-alcoholic drink. Well, let's first clear the air because you probably already know this that not all alcohol is gluten-free, obviously. Beer is not gluten-free unless it's a specific gluten-free beer and designate it as so. Um, and distilled spirits are technically considered gluten-free. You'll have bartenders potentially argue with you over this, but they don't necessarily understand that even if the distilled spirit is gluten-free, it could get some gluten in it in the bottling process, depending upon how they do the things, as well as in just the process of sitting there in the warehouse as well. And we can get a little complicated there, but just trust me, some things can get some gluten in it. And that's not so I want you to know that that's not the whole story when it comes to distilled spirits and liqueurs. And then obviously, beer and malt-based drinks are not safe. Malt is barley. If you're not familiar with that, it is a an additive, a flavoring that people will put into drinks, into candies. Uh, it could be in chips, is where I've also seen it very commonly. It just adds a um a nice flavor to it, honestly. I mean, I remember what malt tastes like before I before I had to be gluten-free. So we want to be really safe and conscious about it. And we want to look at labels to make sure that they are gluten-free. Gluten-free alcohol isn't just about ingredients, it can be about the process handling and how your body reacts. And we're going to talk about several of these things because there's certain liquors that my body tolerates much better than other liquors. And honestly, I don't tolerate the grain-based liquors like whiskey or bourbon and the ones that are made from grains, even though they're technically when they're completely distilled, the gluten should be distilled out of it. I still don't feel well with those. My body still reacts to those. And it could be not specifically gluten-reated related, but it could be as well, like we talked about, cross-contact, whenever they're bottling it. It depends upon their processes. So I want you to be aware to listen to your body if you do decide to drink alcohol specifically. And where you drink matters too. So I want to emphasize this a lot because this is something I've found out over, you know, the past 12 or so years that I've had to be gluten-free. We tend to go to, if we go to get an alcoholic drink, we tend to go to a bar that primarily serve hard ciders or wine because hard ciders are gluten-free, like almost always, unless they put in some crazy flavor like malt in it. I've not ever seen that before, but I'm not going to say that can't happen out there. And then wine obviously is safe. I don't think I've ever heard of malt ever being added to wine, but I also don't want to say that every wine's safe. So always double double check. But what we found is if we go to a place that serves a lot of beer, then I generally will really get sick, especially depending on how they would do their dishes and how they wash their dishes. So when you're at a bar that typically sells a lot of beer, especially we live in a college town, so especially in a college town, they're not using dishwashers to wash their glasses. What they're using is several vats of water. I call it the dippy-doo water. It's just, I don't know. It's just what I've coined it. I call it the dippy-doo water because they're dipping your dirty glass into a rinse um vat of water, and then they dip it into a sanitizing water bath, and then they probably will dip it into a rinse, the sanitizing stuff back off vat, and then they sit it on the counter wherever they dry their quote clean glasses. Okay, so that actually sounds really gross when you think about it, right? So let's say somebody's had you have lots of people have beer. There's a little bit of beer left in each of those glasses, most likely. And when they put it in that rinse water, there goes the beer into the rinse water. Here comes your cup that was supposed to be getting cleaned into that beer water, and then into the sanitizing water, and then next into the rinse. Think about the potential for the cross contact and leaving residue on your glass from that. Uh, one time I was at a local restaurant here, and I decided to get a uh cocktail that was a safe cocktail. It was just amarito sour, you know, just had amarito and sour and a little bit of seven up, or I'm not quite sure how they made it. It wasn't a fancy kind of amarito sour. And I got so sick. And we think it was not only the doopy-doo water, the way they cleaned their glasses, because they sold a lot of beer there, but also the environment. We were on the bar side of this restaurant, sitting in basically the bar booth, and people are just sloppy with their drinks. I mean, let's admit it, you know, they just spill the beer on the table, they'll spill it on the floor, they'll spill it on the seat. And it doesn't have to be beer, it could be any drink, but for us, you know, beer is what is our kryptonite given it has gluten in it. So, you know, it could be very easy for me to have gotten beer in me, maybe not from my glass, but maybe from the table somehow, where I put my hand on the glass and then I drank from the glass. So we'd need to be conscious of where we are if we're going to go out and have drinks, whether it's alcoholic or non-alcoholic, because it could be our environment that could be getting us sick. So this is one of the reasons why whenever we go out, we generally only go to places that are, you know, basically dedicated cider houses. And yes, they generally will sell also beer too, but most people are there for the cider, so they're not having as many beer glasses or wine places. Our local cider house, um, they sell both beer and wine, but they're they make their own homemade uh hard ciders. And the one nice thing about them too is you know, I've talked to them about it, they change their water very frequently. Sometimes in these other bars, they don't change that what I call dippy do water very frequently. Also, this place also uses a sink and you know cleans things that way rather than in these plastic tubs. So kind of know your environment before you go, whether you're getting an alcoholic drink or a mocktail, something that's non-alcoholic. Um, and I really love supporting the places that also support the non-alcoholic drinks like our cider house. They have several excellent mocktails there or NA drinks. And I love that they support those that choose to be alcohol-free too. Getting extremely sick at a beer-focused established can really ruin your evening and potentially your next few days. So I do want you to be really careful when you're out and about and having you know a social drink, again, alcoholic or non-alcoholic, your choice. And I want to make sure that you're safe when you're doing that. Let's go into liquor next because it isn't one size fits all, I don't feel like, whether you're celiac gluten-free or even not gluten-free. I feel like liquor can affect us in different ways with different liquor. It doesn't matter what your body can tolerate or not, as far as gluten goes. But let's talk about the gluten. Distillation does remove the gluten proteins, but bottling and handling can reintroduce that gluten, which is why we need to be careful with those that are from a grain type of um base for the alcohol. And some bodies still react to certain grain-based spirits. I know mine does. I know several people whose bodies react to those grain spirits, even if they're actually gluten-free. Now, I also know people who can drink the grain spirits and it doesn't bother their body either. So, this is an encouragement for you to pay attention to you and how you feel. For me, for example, gin and vodka work best for me, and whiskey and bourbon do not work very well for me. I can have like a sip or so, but it's just not a compatible alcohol for me. Tequila is one of those that's on the edge as well as rum. Those two, if if I get a bad, not really bad, but if I get a cheap version of those, my body just hurts for days. It's not like a hangover or anything. It's just, you know, it doesn't work with my body's system. So I want to make sure that you realize that even if something might be safe, listen to your body. It might not make you feel great, even if it's you know an occasional once-a-month or once a week type of drink when you're out socializing with friends. So listen to your body about it because something can technically be safe, but still not work well for your body. And then I want to talk about hidden gluten and alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. We want to make sure, as we alluded to earlier, that malt flavoring isn't in your drink. It's commonly put into seltzers as well as mixed drinks for an added flavoring. It also could be in pre-made cocktails and pre-made non-alcoholic cocktails. It can even be just in general beverages, you know, just you know, general seltzers that are not even an alcoholic seltzer. So seasonal or flavored beverages can also have them as well. One time one of my adult kids actually got sick from malt flavoring and a drink. It was a hard seltzer because they thought it was gluten-free because of a hard seltzer, but they weren't looking at the label. And they really regretted that and told mom, and they were like, Oh, I should have really looked. You're right, mom. We always look. I'm like, Yes, always look. Even though you're above age for drinking, you gotta look and make sure you keep yourself safe. So always check for malt, even in drinks, mark it as lighter or gluten-free. Make sure there isn't something in there that you shouldn't be having. And then let's talk about those non-alcoholic options that still feel social because we want to not feel excluded if we choose not to drink alcohol. Mocktails are great and delicious. Now, obviously, they're like a dessert because they're usually pretty sweet. Um, but they are a great alternative if you don't want to drink alcohol and but you want to go out with your friends. So explore those mocktails. Ask about what ingredients are in it to make sure it's safe for you. Also, the non-alcoholic spirits can be good as well as you can just get sparkling water with mixers in it too, if you want to be so simple and just have something refreshing for you to drink. So, the key with the non-alcoholic options is just make sure any of the ingredients don't have um any sort of malt in it or any sort of gluten in it. If you love the tips that we provide on this podcast, be sure to join our newsletter. Just head on over to the glutenfreeengineer.com where you'll find a link to join our newsletter as well as our recipes and our show notes. And then I want to talk about that biggest shift for me was when I was realizing that drinking gluten-free isn't about following the rules, it's about paying attention, about paying attention to my body, paying attention to the establishment and their processes. Once I stop focusing on what was allowed and start noticing what actually worked for my body, things became much clearer. I hope this episode helps you whether you drink alcohol occasionally or whether you choose not to drink alcohol at all, but still want to be involved in social situations. I hope it helps you be safe and gluten-free and feel great about your choices. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Gluten Free Engineer. If you found value in this story, please share it with someone who might need encouragement on their own gluten-free journey. For more tips, recipes, resources, and even links to my YouTube channel, head on over to theglutenfreengineer.com. It's your one-stop hub to make gluten-free living simple, fun, and full of flavor. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss out on an episode. And we will see you next week. The Gluten Free Engineer Podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. I share my personal experiences and stories about living with celiac disease and navigating a gluten free lifestyle. This podcast does not provide medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional for medical questions, concerns, or advice specific to your health.