When the Juice Isn't Worth the Squeeze

How to make delicious non-alcoholic cocktails without relying on fruit juices.

An Old Fashioned cocktail.

In a recent essay for the Wall Street Journal, Joel Stein decried fully grown adults drinking “juice” with dinner. Never mind that some of the top restaurants in the world have featured juice pairings; many cocktails, even those with alcohol, are made with juice. And, of course, wine—no matter how fancy—is ultimately just grape juice.

Stein would be hard-pressed—no pun intended—to avoid juice with dinner, no matter where he goes. Bad for him, perhaps, but not always bad for us. There’s a growing repertoire of “fine juices” that reflect the characteristics of their land (aka terroir), like Argouille by La Ferme d’Achille in Quebec, Canada. Their effervescent sea-buckthorn juice with maple syrup is one of my favorites.

Still, it’s not that I don’t understand.

Thank you to Oar Health for sponsoring Positive Damage!

Pouring a Negroni. photo by Farrah Skeiky.