Whether you offset or abstain, sobriety is tasting good

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After a pretty soggy start to October (thanks in part to the Boothby Best Bars Victoria awards), I’m jumping back on the wagon for a little while. Working in the booze industry, this isn’t always the easiest task – I need to taste new whiskies at the bar to be able to recommend them to customers and for some of the consultancy work that I do, plus visit bars to keep you abreast of all the happenings in the Melbourne scene.

Luckily, the non-alcoholic offerings these days are excellent. Personally, I use them to offset – I might try one cocktail and then switch to non-alcoholic drinks, or try a couple of five to 10 ml whisky pours alongside a non-alcoholic beer. Everyone has their own ideas of balance and have to decide what works for them. For me, keeping to one-ish standard drinks where I might otherwise have a few, while still getting to try a range of products and flavours, is a win.

At a recent leaving night at the North Fitzroy Arms, three out of a group of ten or so weren’t drinking. I had work to do afterwards, another has switched to café work so had an early rise the next day, and the third has kids he had to get back to – essentially, life has gotten to us all. Semi-retired reprobates might be the term.

The great thing was that there were options beyond the pub stalwart of lemon lime and bitters (although no disparagement to that drink which I truly believe is one of Australia’s best). I started with a Heaps Normal, the brand that has done more than most to make not drinking cool, and the crack, fizz and full flavour of that tinnie hits just right in a sunny pub courtyard. I then tried a Yerba Mate and cherry iced tea, which had enough refreshment and complexity to effortlessly replace the G&T I would probably have ordered next, before switching to easy drinking Moritz 0%. I left not feeling like I had missed out on anything, and with a clear head.

The thing that Melbourne does better than most is wine bars, and so it makes sense that one of the most interesting wine replacements comes from here as well. Rather than de-alcoholised wine, NON is a reimagination of the structure and flavour of wine using natural produce and culinary techniques, with no fermentation. 

According to Nick Cozens, head of beverage and innovation, the idea came to founder Aaron Trotman at a degustation dinner in London. His matched beverage pairing was an old port rescued from a sunken ship, “and was one of the most disgusting things he’d ever drunk in his life.” His wife, on the other hand, was doing the non-alcoholic pairing, and this had been created by the chefs using their expertise of flavour and balance. “This completely blew him away, and he wondered why you couldn’t get this kind of thing in a bottle.”

When the opportunity arose for Nick to join, it came at a time where he was re-evaluating his relationship with the bar industry and alcohol. “I had moved out of bars and restaurants because I felt like I had stopped learning, and without alcohol I just couldn’t find myself being as interested in the people who came in – some of the best in the industry are fascinated by every guest, and I never had that and wasn’t learning on the service or cocktail side of things any more. So, NON felt like a challenge because we’re doing everything for the first time, we have to learn everything as we go.

“I want to understand why we taste what we taste and how we taste it, and what effects on the palate the order of putting things in has.” 

“People want variety. You go to a wine bar and you’re not drinking, you don’t want a mocktail in a tiki mug with a palm tree and all your friends are drinking pinot. People want to feel like they’ve got a seat at the same table, and drink out of the same glass,” explains Nick. At NON, they use the same pillars as wine – aroma, tannin, body to carry flavour, acidity and length – and replicate those using ingredients ‘from the real world’. An orange, for instance, could be used for the aroma of the oils, or bitterness of the pith, or sweetness of the flesh, or acidity, depending how they process the orange.

“We’ve got the whole world of ingredients to use to be able to hit all of those different flavour profiles.” In this way they build a complex and decidedly adult drink, and it's a method bartenders can learn from when creating interesting non-alcoholic beverages.

It's a symptom of getting older that many peers, like Nick, have moved away from frontline service and the excessive indulgences of our younger years. Is it possible, though, to remain immersed in the hospitality industry and cut back, or cut out drinking entirely?

Kiem-Ai Nguyen had spent years in the nightclub industry, running southside club One Six One, when they decided they needed to make a change. They are now fully sober and in a new role as a manager at Collingwood live music venue the Gasometer Hotel. 

“I moved to a different part of town, into a different role, to be able to set a precedent for myself,” they explain. “I had to do a full reset.” They have found a workplace where everyone fully respects their sobriety: “Everyone I work with is really supportive”. For anyone else contemplating such a move, Kiem recommends a sober buddy, wholesale lifestyle changes like concentrating on exercise, and surrounding yourself with people who will make the effort to enjoy non-booze related activities with you. 

Kiem, at the start of their journey, avoided alcohol replacements. Now, they do enjoy mocktails but would love to see bars put more effort into them past syrups and juice to create full flavour experiences — a very reasonable request, and one that I think we are starting to pay attention to.

At the end of the day, everyone has a different relationship with alcohol and checking in with it regularly is only a good thing. Putting effort into non-alcoholic offerings is a smart business move in the current sober-curious climate, but also reinforces that there is a place for non-drinkers in the industry. Inclusive hospitality is for everyone, both in front of and behind the stick.

Around the Bars

• One of the things I’m most proud of at Goodwater is the structure of our drinks menu – each of our house cocktails lists a flavour profile, which can be ordered as a boozy stir down, a lighter highball or a non-alcoholic version. While it causes some headaches for head bartender John Hallett, the result is a choose your own adventure that means no one is missing out. We’re switching to our summer menu in the next week or so, so pop in and see what clever combinations John has come up with, whether you’re drinking or not.
• Spring has sprung in Melbourne finally, and one of my favourite non-alcs is another local hero, the Sunny Arvo Noperitivo from Three Foxes distillery. Complex and sophisticated, it's a great one to bring to a picnic or have in the bar to scratch the sunshine-induced Spritz itch for non-drinkers.
• Some of my favourite non-alcoholic cocktails have been at science-led Bouvardia. Their menu lists the ABVs of all the cocktails, so whether you’re going no or low, you can make a well informed decision and enjoy a deliciously well constructed drink.