Chef Alex George is his own target audience for a spirit-free bar program he’s rolling out at Golden Brown & Delicious during the first quarter of 2023.
After committing to Dry January (plus a few weeks) in 2022 and also abstaining from alcohol for the entirety of July, he’s finding himself looking for more non-alcoholic options on bar menus while maintaining a late-night social life.
What is Dry January?
Dry January began in 2012 as a public health initiative from Alcohol Change UK, a British charity. Participants refrain from drinking any alcohol during the month of January as a personal challenge. Now, millions participate every year and many extend the challenge beyond the one month.
“There is pressure to go out and drink to be social, and for a lot of people who don’t drink, they don’t feel like they have opportunities to be social,” George says.
What further solidified his resolve to provide more robust spirit-free options at the bar of GB&D, located within The Commons at 147 Welborn St. beside Unity Park, was his dad’s reaction one night in mid-December to sampling mocktails during dinner at the restaurant.
“My dad had some the other night at the bar, and he said, ‘See, if I knew I could get this at a bar, I might go out a bit more,’” George says.
Offering nonalcoholic mixed drink options, often called “mocktails,” at a bar isn’t new — the Shirley Temple with grenadine and Sprite being the most recognizable — but more diverse options and creative mocktail builds have increased in popularity, with notable chefs and celebrities publicly announcing their sobriety and many others quietly seeking balance and moderation. For many, that starts during Dry January, a worldwide practice of abstaining from alcohol during the first month of the year.
Laura Etta, bartender and mixologist at West End restaurant Urban Wren, is mindful of her guests who may want alcohol-free options.
“I want the bar experience to be universal,” she says. “I hate the thought of people not being able to go out and enjoy time being social and hanging out with friends, going on dates, celebrating holidays or achievements, etc., just because they don’t drink alcohol. Mocktails bring people to the bar, or back to the bar, who might not otherwise have been there, and that’s the goal as a bartender: to bring guests into a welcoming and comfortable environment and help them have an enjoyable experience.”
But back to the Shirley Temple. While widely available, it’s also chock full of sugar and lacking the sophistication of a composed cocktail that many nondrinkers miss. George’s plan is a response to this need.
“We’re going to start distilling our own nonalcoholic spirits and playing around with more in the background so that we can build a Manhattan or a Negroni that has no alcohol but that still captures that bitter complexity you want from it,” he says.
The new spirit-free options at GB&D will be comparable in number and prominence to their cocktail counterparts on the bar menu and will focus on more herbal and bitter flavors that would appeal to a more sophisticated palate.
“So maybe you order a mocktail after a cocktail and won’t have a dramatic shift from bitter to sweet,” he says, acknowledging that alcohol moderation may include a guest’s ordering a variety of options to meet their particular social and consumption needs any given night.
To keep her alcohol-free options from seeming pedestrian, Etta says she draws inspiration from tiki cocktails or even margaritas, mojitos and mules.
Regardless of the inspiration or motivation, nonalcoholic options are trending. Many of Greenville’s prominent bars have dipped their toes in with a few listed options. George hopes some will fully immerse themselves in the possibilities that exist.
“There’s potential for thoughtfulness in this realm, and it’s hopefully shifting,” he says. “But I would like to see more.”
Pro-tip: “I’ve noticed that people tend to tip low or sometimes not at all on mocktails. I’d love to educate the consumer about tipping on them as if they’re a real cocktail because often they can be just as labor-intensive and challenging as a regular cocktail, and sometimes even more so depending on the ingredients — like fresh-squeezed juices and house-made seasonal syrups — and because we’re usually creating something new on the fly instead of following a standard recipe,” Etta says.
