CHEERS TO DRY JANUARY

“I’m doing dry January, like a lot of people, and it seems more and more people I know are choosing to go alcohol-free to start off the year, be it to detox after too much celebrating at Christmas, or simply as a healthy start to the New Year.  Mine is a combination of the two things to be honest – but I  haven’t managed to get through without these 2  ‘mocktails’.   I’ve also been loving some of the non-alcoholic gins that are around.  A large glass filled with ice and fresh lime, with maybe some juniper berries and a low-calorie tonic water and you could almost think you were drinking a ‘proper’ gin and tonic – well almost !  My favourite is Seedlip - which is the world’s first distilled non-alcoholic spirit “.

 MOJITO MOCKTAIL 

This is a really refreshing take on the classic, (and my favourite) rum cocktail. 

Ingredients:

1 tbsp sugar

Small bunch of mint

3 limes juiced

Soda water

Method:

Muddle the sugar with leaves from the mint in a small bowl and with the end of a rolling pin if you haven’t got a cocktail ‘muddler’.  Put the mint along with a handful of crushed ice into 2 tall glasses.  Divide the lime juice between the glasses and top up with soda water.

FAUX FIZZ

 This is a lovely alternative to champagne or prosecco during a dry January.

Ingredients:

2tsp apple cider vinegar

Sparkling water (to top up)

Base Syrup:

1 sliced pear

4 dried apricots

75g golden caster sugar

25g honey

1 sprig rosemary

1 strip of lemon zest

Method:

To make the base syrup, put the sliced pear, apricots, golden caster sugar, honey, rosemary and the lemon zest altogether in a saucepan with 100ml of water.  Heat it up for approximately 10 minutes until all of the sugar has dissolved.  Make sure the pear is very soft and then leave the pan to cool down completely.  Once cool, strain the syrup into a jug, add the apple cider vinegar and chill in the fridge until  cold.

Pour a measure (25ml) of the syrup into a champagne flute and top up with the sparkling water.