This may come as a shock to martini-packing New Yorkers, but not everyone wants to drink.
Finally, a new generation of bar owners is recognizing that pregnant women, recovering alcoholics and those who just don’t want a hangover in the morning are no longer content to sip club soda with a slice of lemon while mixologists lavish complex and fruity vodka-based delights on their alcohol-imbibing friends.
At the nightclub Quo on West 28th Street, owner Gary Malhotra, 33, makes a point of providing a stylish soft drink option. The most popular is the $8 Sunset: grenadine syrup, fresh orange juice and a splash of pineapple juice served in a martini glass garnished with an orange twist.
“A lot of people come in and they don’t want to drink, and the whole point is to give them an option to have something that looks like a drink without the alcoholic effect,” he says.
“It sounds nice to order a Sunset, and it is served in a Martini glass, without alcohol in it. They can mingle with it and feel comfortable.”
Mitch Pollak, 45, the owner of Light, a lounge on 54th Street, was inspired to create a soft drink menu after doing events where people do not drink alcohol.
“We do a lot of corporate events, and sweet 16 parties where the clientele are not old enough to drink,” he says. Now, he reports, he sells more and more drinks from the non-alcoholic menu on regular nights, especially to “designated drivers” and women who are, or think they may be, expecting.
Favorite concoctions at $6 a pop include the Peach-yee-tini (peach puree, lychee juice and pineapple juice, shaken and strained into martini glasses and garnished with a lychee) and Mango Madness (mango puree and coconut milk served with shredded coconut in a Martini glass).
“People don’t want to drink soda,” says Pollak. “They don’t want to feel left out – and maybe they can sneak in a little nutrition on the side.”
At SoHo’s famous Cub Room, bar manager Lee Santos makes a $6 non-alcoholic punch out of lemon, orange, lime and cranberry juices.
“It’s something that people have in the evenings if they are driving, or at brunch, when they don’t want alcohol,” she says.
One of the tastiest non-alcoholic cocktails we discovered was the Fitzroy Flip at the Sunburnt Cow, the redoubtable Australian bar on Avenue C, more famous for its potent moo-tinis.
Although the ingredients – apple juice, passion fruit pulp, elderflower cordial, lemon juice and an egg yolk – may sound incongruous, together they taste like a fruity apple martini.
At the JLX Bistro on Columbus Avenue, proprietor Ed Jean-Luc Kleefield says that having a good selection of stylish no-alcoholic drinks is essential when serving a clientele as conscious about health as about image.
“We find – especially midweek – that people want to go out, but not have a hangover the next day,” he says. “One of our most popular drinks is the Rasmopolitan – raspberry juice, raspberry puree, Sprite and freshly squeezed lime juice, served in a martini glass.”
The sourness of the lime gives the drink an almost alcoholic zing, and the martini glass makes it looks very sophisticated – a world away from Coke in a tumbler with a thick straw.
“We certainly don’t want anyone to feel they are being discriminated against or discounted just because they choose not to drink alcohol,” he says. “So it looks sexy.”