It’s a question you might find yourself pondering as you page through a drinks menu at some painfully vibe-y spot: $13 for something involving sea buckthorn and tonic at the Writer’s Room; $19 for “strawberry water,” hibiscus tea and Seedlip at the Royal York’s Epoch bar. Even at more casual joints, you’re still, say, contemplating a $9 virgin mojito at The Shameful Tiki Room while your pals sip their marginally more expensive $14 rum-based daiquiris.
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In fact, unless you’re getting sparkling water — or the other sober stalwarts, like Diet Coke or fruit juice — the non-imbiber can be hard pressed to get change out of $20 for their singular mocktail.
“Everybody always thinks they’re going to save so much money by quitting drinking,” says Sarah Kate, founder of non-alcoholic drinks magazine Some Good Clean Fun. “But once you start getting into the non-alcoholic drinks space, you might actually feel like you’re spending more.”
This feels counterintuitive to everyone who has always assumed that the booze in a cocktail was the reason you might be paying $23 for that fancy concoction at a cool bar.
“Alcohol is cheap. It’s the ingredients that are expensive,” she explains, nodding to all the various flourishes — muddled this or infused that — that contribute to the flavour architecture of a cocktail. “With mocktails, the cheapest part has actually been taken out.”
And, if your drink is being made with an alcohol dupe, odds are that it’s something that’s actually pricier than the boozy original.
“Making a non-alcoholic spirit is really expensive, because you’re either making a whisky and then removing the alcohol from it, which is double the process, or you’re creating something from scratch and trying to emulate all the things whisky has to do,” says Kate, referring to extensive R & that has to go into all of this. “That creates an extra cost for manufacturers, so at a base level, a non-alcoholic is no cheaper than making a regular spirit. It’s actually more expensive.”
For example: Kate’s favourite low ABV (alcohol by volume) tequila is from Montreal’s HP Agave, which retails for $42 a bottle. That’s roughly what you’d expect to pay for a mid-range “real” tequila, and certainly cheaper than the lower range tequilas you might find behind the bar.
“It tastes like a tequila. This isn’t just a bunch of crappy ingredients thrown into a bottle with chemical flavouring,” she says. “They’ve put time and thought into creating something that really is a dupe for the real thing. I’ll happily pay $42 for that because it helps me make a margarita.”
This is all compounded by two other factors, adds Kate: A lack of economies of scale around many of these alcohol-free alternatives — most aren’t offered by the big provisioning companies who supply restaurants and bars; plus many aren’t produced on the industrial scale required to bring costs down anyway — and the fact that importing those made outside Canada can be expensive, too. “Every step of the way, it adds less and less of a margin for somebody,” she says.
The other option for a bar is to forego the dupes and make their mocktail ingredients from scratch. This, points out mixologist Brenton Mowforth, is equally expensive.
“It’s the labour,” he explains. “It takes time to make all the infusions, or work to get the texture just right.” A mocktail can take as much time out of a bartender’s shift, including all the prep that goes into creating all the elements behind-the-scenes, as any of the “regular” cocktails on their menu.
He also points out that, along with paying for the mixology expertise that goes into making a mocktail just as interesting as its boozy counterpart, in a responsible establishment you’re also paying for a certain vigilance around your drink, akin to the care that’s taken around an allergy.
“When they know they’re making a non-alcoholic drink, a good bartender will treat it like it’s a life-or-death situation,” says Mowforth, nodding to all of the reasons beyond mere preference, like pregnancy or sobriety, that might make it imperative that your virgin piña colada really doesn’t have rum in it.
And on that note: In the broader project that is normalizing not drinking alcohol, seeing this sort of sticker shock for sophisticated, complex mocktails can be viewed as a sign of progress. Rather than not catering to this audience at all, or just dialing it in with a glorified Shirley Temple, bars are putting effort into their non-alc offerings — which, to Mowforth’s point above, costs time and money.
Case in point: Kate recently had a non-alcoholic take on an Aperol spritz at a bar.
“They had made their own Campari syrup dupe, so it had that bitter-orange flavour,” she says. “It wasn’t just, ‘We’ll muddle some blood orange in a glass and add some club soda.’ They actually took the time to elevate that experience.”
This matters, Kate says, because drinking or not, everyone wants to feel included.
“It’s a message of, ‘We see you, you’re important, and we want you to come back.’ That’s the way of the future.”
There’s solidarity, it seems, in spending a small fortune on a night out.
Shop sober spirits
Set up your mocktails bar at home with these non-alcoholic alternatives to the classics
The gin
This award-winning line of alcohol-free spirits made with gin botanicals comes in Classic, Crisp, Rose and Wild, all zero-sugar and flavoured with herbs, spices and flowers. Classic is fresh and floral with juniper, rooibos, coriander and lavender.
The tequila
This craft-distilled tequila is one of two award-winning non-alc spirits from Stratford, Ont. brand Sobrii (the other is gin). Tequila’s signature flavour and burn are replicated with jalapeno, black pepper, coriander and ginseng.
The rum
Google “best non-alcoholic rum” and you won’t find many lists that don’t include Lyre’s. One of three of the brand’s rums, alongside white and spiced, this dark version has notes of caramel, toasted nuts, maple and vanilla.
The aperitivo
Summer is coming, and you shouldn’t be deprived of an Aperol spritz (or something like it) should you choose to abstain from alcohol. Enter this spiced orange aperitivo from classic Italian beverages brand Martini.
The bubbles
Our wine critic gave this French sparkling rosé, with its scent of “strawberry cream tarts” and “wispy flavours of raspberry” a whopping score of 96. She says it’s one of the best non-alcoholic wines at the LCBO.
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