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Genuine question: what do you drink instead? Do you stick to water or do you order any kind of soda/lemonade (or something I’m not thinking about)
by leifg 5y ago
Genuine question: what do you drink instead? Do you stick to water or do you order any kind of soda/lemonade (or something I’m not thinking about)
- kevinmchugh 5y agoClub soda (or flavored seltzer) + bitters. There's alcohol there still but less than half a percent ABV. Not enough that it tastes boozy or impairs my judgement. Drinking one relatively low ABV beer impairs my judgement enough that a second drink sounds like a good idea, the soda and bitters never does that for me.
- germinalphrase 5y agoThis (or similar) is my go-to. In a rocks glass, it also looks enough like a cocktail that no one makes a point of asking (if that matters to you).
- carlmr 5y ago>no one makes a point of asking (if that matters to you). Actually it does kind of annoy me when I just drink water that people will ask all the time. My go to has been seltzer + lime + wedge because I do like to have some taste, and it does look cocktail-ish.
- czbond 5y agoI've loved club soda - and dislike alcohol; however, never thought of adding bitters. I like this idea a lot.
- crackercrews 5y agoHow are bitters with plain seltzer? I have a sodastream and am looking for some good flavors. Can't figure out anything that tastes as good as flavored bubly or lacroix and that doesn't have lots of sugar.
- Epenthesis 5y agoI personally like it a lot. It's my go-to at a bar when I don't feel like drinking That said I also like plain seltzer and bitter flavors generally (dark chocolate, black coffee, IPAs), so YMMV.
- mattlong 5y agoI love pairing bitters with my sodastream! A few of my favorite recipes are: 1) Grapefruit & Cherry, 2) Cardamom, and 3) Orange & Cranberry. Clearly it's all to taste, but a 3-4 dashes of each bitter is a good starting point for a ~16oz glass of seltzer. Fee Brothers sells a 12 piece variety pack which is a great way to experiment. After that you have quite a rabbit hole of bitters brands and flavors to explore!
- alexobenauer 5y agoIf you haven't tried them yet, Bubly makes drops for Sodastream.
- crackercrews 5y agoWhoa, game-changing. When I got my sodastream they just had lousy syrups. If these are like the canned bubly drinks then that will be amazing.
- dlp211 5y agoI also gave up most drinking where I drink probably 5-6 times a year, usually with a dinner where I want a nice mixed cocktail or at a large holiday party/wedding, where again I can enjoy mixed cocktails. I personally drink soda as a replacement since I drink almost strictly water otherwise.
- ohazi 5y agoTangentially related anecdote: I went from always ordering a soft drink at restaurants to only drinking water. The swich occurred almost overnight, and I ended up losing about 25 lbs. The reason I did this was entirely social, and it happened by accident. My parents didn't have soft drinks at home, except occasional leftovers after a party, so ordering a soft drink at a restaurant was sort of a "special treat," even if it was an infinitely refillable fountain drink. It turns out 3 glasses of soda have a metric fuckton of sugar. Anyway, when I went to college, literally none of my friends would order soft drinks when we'd go out to eat. I'm not sure if it was because people were being thrifty, or for ease of splitting the bill, or maybe they just knew more about sugar than I did, but being the one person to order a soda felt so awkward that I just stopped and eventually never went back.
- 1980phipsi 5y agoI lost five pounds or so switching from Coke to Diet Coke.
- phkahler 5y agoThere is more weight loss to be had switching from Diet Coke to water. It's obviously not the calorie content, but the insulin response from sweet tasting things that will occur even with artificial sweeteners.
- koolba 5y agoDoes that apply to all artificial sweeteners such as sucralose or is it specific to aspartame?
- lotsofpulp 5y agoI have yet to find a single study confirming any rumored ill effects of artificial sweeteners, including aspartame. At least in any reasonable consumption amounts since you need so little of the sweetener.
- 5y ago
- crackercrews 5y agoI prefer to eat my calories rather than eat them. So I drink water and soda water 95% of the time.
- graeme 5y agoIf available, sparkling water with lemon. Another commenter mentioned bitters, I plan to add that. They’re fine as long as the incredibly tiny alcohol amount won’t cause any issues. If that isn’t available, some sort of soda or tea or coffee. Or, just water. No one really cares, though to be polite to the bar you’re at it’s good to try to buy something.
- mumblemumble 5y agoI've also discovered that my favorite gin and tonic doesn't actually contain any gin. Tonic water and lime suits me just fine.
- tingletech 5y agoa lot of beer places near me carry lagunitas hop water. It's zero calorie sparking water with a hoppy flavor.
- philips 5y agoDry kombucha is a really nice alternative at 50 - 100 calories a can. My go to this summer https://www.lionheartkombucha.com/flavors/ https://www.lionheartkombucha.com/flavors/
- yojo 5y agoI'm also a fan of kombucha (and make it at home), but it's not quite a non-alcoholic beverage. Commercial kombucha is generally < .5%, homebrew can be up to 10x that. It's a two step process - yeast ferments the sugar into alcohol, then bacteria digest the alcohol into acid. If the bacteria fall behind, the ABV goes up. The yeast can work anaerobic, the bacteria need O2 to get the job done. Anything not pasteurized is likely going to increase in ABV some in the bottle, since the yeast are active and the bacteria aren't. This is also why I force carbonate my home-brew - when you build CO2 with a secondary ferment you're also building alcohol.
- smegger001 5y agoyup. I ferment craft soda in my cellar. root beer, ginger beer, cream soda, and I have to be careful or it starts to get a noticeable alcohol content. most of my friends drink when we get together and I am not fond of the flavor of beer. But home brew ginger beer seems to fill the space and I can drive home after as the sodas when done properly have like 1% or less abv. just have to pasteurize it at the right point or drink it soon enough.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- TheTrotters 5y agoFlavored sparkling water
- paulgb 5y agoI've replaced the beer in my fridge with Athletic Brewing's non-alcoholic beer.
- matwood 5y agoHow do you like it? I like the taste of beer, and often want something more than water at night. But, I don't typically have alcohol except on the weekends (my wife and I joke about 2 beers and things are getting crazy lol). So during the week I often drink milk or a sugar free sports drink. Tea is also ok, but I try to avoid all caffeine late in the day.
- paulgb 5y agoIt's not exactly the same taste as beer but they satisfy my cravings. They've completely replaced the occasional beer I have with dinner in the evening, and if I drink socially I often alternate between them and “real beer” so that I don't pay for it the next day.
- meheleventyone 5y agoThere’s a couple of really good non-alcoholic beers here in Iceland. For want of a better explanation the flavour is really there but it lacks the edge or bite of real beer. I don’t know if it’s flavour or feel but it’s noticeable. That said due to recent medical stuff I’ve been drinking it and think I could stick with it long term.
- losvedir 5y agoI'm in a similar position, and lately I've been having flavored sparkling waters (Mmm Orange Bubly) and herbal (i.e. non-caffeinated) teas, depending if I want hot or cold. Obviously they don't taste like beer, but what I found was at least for me after doing it a while, it's not really the taste I wanted; that was just the association I had with the ritual I enjoyed of a nightcap, and now I'm happy with my new ones.
- sciurus 5y agoThey're decent, and definitely towards the top of the pack of non-alcoholic beer brands. Clausthaler is also ok if you prefer a lager to an ale. (I spent a couple months trying every variety of non-alcoholic "craft" beer that I could get my hands on earlier in the pandemic)
- globular-toast 5y agoNot OP, but I've also stopped drinking entirely and my standard go-to is a lime soda. I've never been somewhere where this is not known and it's not overly sweet or expensive. It looks enough like a drink to be a drink, if you know what I mean.
- waterglassFull 5y agoGive quality sparkling water a go if you can, eg San Pellegrino, Castello, Harrogate (glass only), etc.
- bitcurious 5y agoUsually seltzer, coffee, tea. Recently I discovered Hoplark “hop teas” which (to my tastebuds) separate the best parts of beer from the alcohol.
- sciurus 5y agoIf you like hop-flavored beverages, definitely try Lagunitas Hoppy Refresher.
- coderintherye 5y agoAs another non-drinker, Kombucha and occasionally non-alcoholic beers. Kombucha has a tiny bit of alcohol (<0.5%) and tastes a bit like a soda but has a tiny amount of sugar (usually only 8g / serving).
- danwills 5y agoAnd as long as it hasn't been pasteurized, is a living probiotic too. (though I prefer milk kefir myself)
- spodek 5y agoFor reference, humans drank only water after weaning for several hundred thousand years. Today we act like only water is deprivation.
- Ericson2314 5y agoI found eating or drinking later has started to mess me up. (see e.g. the 3 hours before bed rule from the literature around circadian arrhythmia.) Between that in particular, and all the intermittent fasting faddishness in the air, calories in drinks, especially outside mealtime, just began to feel weird. Water it is.
- marton_s 5y agoI live in Germany where beer is abundant and so are the non-alcoholic variants. My favorite is non-alcoholic Hefeweizen - unfiltered wheat beer: no spoiled taste, the only thing absent is alcohol.