I am rather far from tee-total. I’m a bit of a wine buff, I have the most generous pouring arm (I cannot remember the last time a G&T of mine was actually fizzy) and a Henry VIII-esque thirst for port. Granville Bennett from All Creatures is my icon. Those “save water drink champagne” coasters you see in gift shops and on Etsy were made for me. Now then, a few people in my close circle are tee-total or only drink very little. This has its advantages. At parties where alcoholic drinks are pushed into every guest’s hand upon arrival, I always get two. At a meal a few weeks ago where the wine flowed as if from a tap, I routinely swapped my empty glass with my non-drinking companion’s and watched it refill with Sauvignon Blanc every five minutes or so, in a scene slightly reminiscent of the 1961 sketch “Dinner For One”. And no, it’s never a problem, they don’t cramp my style - let’s ditch the idea that tee-total = boring. My boyfriend (who’d been on soft stuff all night) was the first on the dance floor at a recent white-tie event, shamelessly dad-dancing to Sinatra. But what I cannot stand on their behalf is that they’re immediately lumped in with the children the second “got anything soft?” passes their lips. I was at a function with a tee-totaller recently - we both made our way to the bar, I scooped up a champagne flute for myself and he was handed fresh orange juice in a tumbler. What? Infantilisation aside - why give us boozers the expensive stuff when by the end of some nights we’d struggle to drink out of a sippy cup? Let the cut crystal stay in the safe hands of the drivers, the abstainers, the I-just-don’t-like-the-stuff-ers. And orange juice, really? Why do bars’ pockets run to unlimited champagne while their imagination doesn’t stretch beyond fruit juice? Paradox of tee-totalism: people complain you’re not adventurous, then refuse to serve you adventurous drinks. Granted, even in the last four years or so I’ve seen a huge increase in low- and no-alcohol options that are marketed at adults: like dealcoholised wine or beer - tee-total-friendly but you’d hesitate to give it to a child. Undoubtedly leading the way is Seedlip, with their #NoMoreMocktails campaign, taglines like “Don’t Settle - Demand” and "What to drink when you're not drinking", and the all-important achingly cool Instagram account. It’s refreshing and quite exciting to see an alcohol-free brand carve out a corner of the ‘lifestyle’ aesthetic normally reserved for booze. I last tried Seedlip at a restaurant, partnered rather uncreatively with water and far too much ice - but they have a whole repertoire of alcohol-free cocktails on their website, where complex flavours like botanicals, honey, and citrus are allowed to shine in the place of sugar.
But there’s still a long way to go. Mocktail recipes so frequently end with something along the lines of “add a splash of spirits for the adults”; “great for kids, or for adults with a sweet tooth”, and in researching for this blog post I think I found the worst of the lot: “Give champagne to the adults and these kid-friendly versions to the young ones so everyone can toast together!” Because as everyone knows, if you’re an adult you 1) like champagne, 2) are not on medication or are not part of a religion that prohibits alcohol, 3) aren’t driving, 4) will jump on alcohol whenever it’s offered. Cocktail bars, typically adult-only environments, aren’t immune either. Alcohol-free “alternatives”, forever pitched as ‘fun’ rather than sophisticated, brightly coloured, served in piña colada glasses, with straws and oversized fruit garnishes that just scream “kids’ table.” Mixtures of three fruit juices - sometimes, horrifically, milkshakes - that are virtually all ice and somehow STILL cost £5.95. The drinkers might get lumped with a bigger bill but we pay for the privilege of exciting flavours, of salt-rimmed glassware and garnishes that aren’t ice and a slice, of being the target audience. The promising clink of exotic-looking bottles behind the bar where non-drinkers hear the damp thud of cardboard as a seldom-used carton of Tesco from-concentrate juice is retrieved from the fridge and plonked down on the bar. What a weird sense of exclusivity and ceremony has evolved from rotten grapes and pulped-up spuds.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
The official website of Yorkshire-made, Oxford-based writer Isabel Parkinson. Want fewer words and more pics? Follow me on Instagram!
(Header Photo: Radcliffe Camera, Oxford - Isabel Parkinson 2016)
|