Your Guide To Mindful Drinking - With 5 Helpful Tips

28 Oct

A relatively new concept has arrived for people who want more of a healthier relationship with alcohol but don’t want to give it up completely. It’s called mindful drinking.

“Mindful Drinking” is the practice of being aware of why and how much alcohol you’re drinking. As well as the sustainability and waste aspects of your drinking. Gone are the days of huge inedible single use cocktail garnishes and heavy hitting drinks.

What is Mindful Drinking

The goal of mindful drinking it to achieve a healthier relationship with alcohol. If for you, that means going cold turkey then by all means go for it. If you have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol then going completely sober may just be the right decision for you.

However, when I say “Mindful Drinking” I don’t necessarily mean going sober. It’s less about restrictions and more about healthy decisions.

What this basically means is questioning your drinking habits. Do you have to have a bottle of wine with every evening meal? You’re going out to a bar with friends, does that mean you have to drink just because everyone else is?

Since mindful drinking and sustainability has taken off, bars and restaurants have made leaps of progress with creativity and innovation around low and no ABV cocktails. The word “mocktail” is now considered an old timey insulting way of describing a non-alcoholic cocktail. But why is that?

It’s because the days where a non-alcoholic cocktail is just an alcoholic cocktail without the booze “Virgin Mojito, Nogroni, Virgin Mary ect.” are gone. These Days, non-alcoholic cocktails are now a focus of passionate bartenders. With that comes creativity. Cocktails that are boozeless by design. The unique flavours and mouth-feel of these drinks are designed around non-alcoholic ingredients as opposed to alcoholic cocktails without the booze.

The problem with mocktails

When you take an alcoholic cocktail and remove the booze, you change the whole dynamic of the drink. Cocktails are balanced with the booze in mind, so once you remove that booze you remove the balance.

This leads to overly sweat and overly sour cocktails without much complexity.

The Good News…

The good news is that with bartenders taking non-alcoholic cocktail creativity seriously, it means brands are having to get creative to keep up with the demand. Which has led to an array of complex non-alcoholic products that mirror similarities in boozey products but without the ABV.

And it’s not just non alcoholic gin, rum, and tequilas that are propping up. It’s brands like Everleaf, a non alcoholic aperitif and Aecorn, which is made with Pinot Noir, Chardonnay & Meunier grapes .

Low ABV Drinking

As mentioned above. Mindful drinking is not about going sober or restricting your drinking, but rather making better choices. The innovation in non-alcoholic cocktails is excellent because it means you can get that same grown up flavour of a cocktail without the booze, instead of feeling like you’re drinking a Capri Sun.

However, you might still want that booze. For the most part, so do I! That's where low abv drinks come into play. Below are a few suggestions for Low ABV drinks you will love!;

Low abv cocktails like spritz are a great go-to
Love a gin and tonic? Try a vermouth and tonic. Not only is it low ABV it's a bloody exceptional drink!
Shandy. An oldy but goldy. Swap out your pint for a half and half beer and lemonade.
Amaro. Amaros are low abv herbal and bitter liqueurs which although are mostly low ABV, have a massive kick of flavour. Mixing a 25ml measure of an amaro such as Amaro montenegro or Fernet Branca with coca-cola will be more than enough to taste a big boozy kick of alcohol in a delicious and simple mixer. Something you can easily mix up at home and if I do say so myself, Leaps better than the classic Vodka & coke.

Benefits Of Mindful Drinking

So why make the change to Mindful Drinking? What are the benefits?

As Well as the obvious health benefits of cutting down your alcohol intake, there's also the mental health side of things. This is especially apparent with bartenders. Drinking has often been considered as “Part of the job” for bartenders. A few shots of tequila to get you through the weekend shifts, a bit of “Cocktail development” session or training sessions that end in daily drinking.

It doesn't sound like a lot but all that daily drinking adds up. It starts not just affecting your body but your mind.

Hangovers are another mental health affecting issue. Having a night out drinking, laughing and dancing makes you feel great! What’s not so great is the next day when you feel terrible and spend the whole day in bed glugging water and lucozade feeling sorry for yourself.

If you only just switched out a few of them drinks for low ABV options, or decided to savour your drinks instead of knocking them back as soon as you got hold of it. Then the next day could be great. Looking back with fond memories rather than that “Oh god, what did I do last night”

5 ways to achieve Mindful Drinking

So, now you know what mindful drinking is, and are up to date on the low and no ABV category. You’re probably wondering how exactly to put it into motion and become a mindful drinker.

Below I have listed 5 great ways to become more mindful of your drinking...

1. Why are you drinking?

My first tip is to simply ask yourself why you are drinking. Is it for the right or wrong reasons? Are you just drinking because everyone else is? If so swapping it out for a low abv drink will be the easiest thing for you to do. Or are you doing it out of habit?

A lot of us get into the habit of drinking when we don’t have work the following day because we have the mindset “I can afford to be hungover” We don’t necessarily care for it, it’s just habit.

Try to get into the habit of questioning why you’re drinking and you will see the difference. And remember. Do not get into the habit of drinking when you’re sad or going through issues. Using alcohol to curve bad feelings is the start of something that can easily become problematic. Stick to the social aspect and celebratory drinks.

2. Don’t restrict yourself

The problem many of us have when we try to be more mindful with our drinking is the restrictions we give ourselves. You want to achieve a healthy lifestyle. That's hard to do when you’re constantly restricting yourself. It just feels like you’re missing out on something.

Swap to low abv because you have found a low abv drink you love, or don't drink because you questioned why you’re drinking and realized you don’t really care for it. Don't restrict yourself. Dont tell yourself “I’m going out tonight and I will not drink anything!” That normally leads to falling off the bandwagon. Instead tell yourself “I’m probably going to drink tonight but if I don't need another drink I wont have one” or “I’m going to try some non-alcoholic/low abv cocktails and see if I like them”

And if you want that boozy cocktail by all means go for it! Have yourself a Negroni or Gin Martini. They are great cocktails, they aren't the enemy. Just be mindful of how many/what else you’re having.

3. Try new things

A lot of us have our “signature” drinks. Our go to cocktails and mixers which we safely stick with. What I'm urging you to do is to get out of that comfort box of yours and try something new. If you’re out shopping for booze try picking up something you might not normally go for. If you're in a bar ask the bartender for recommendations!

A good bartender will always help you out. Maybe your go-to is a gin and tonic, simply ask the bartender “Hey, I normally go for a gin and tonic, do you have anything less alcoholic you can recommend?” You may be pleasantly surprised with what they whip up for you. Simple bartender communication will help you immensely.

Not only will it help you but it's fun! Yeah, you may get something you don’t like, but you just let the bartender know and the next time they get you something you may love it more then the gin and tonic you would originally go for.

4. Purchase high quality products

Like we spoke about above, brands have made leaps of innovation in low/no alcoholic products. But what about if you still want that booze but don't want to feel shitty. What do you do? Higher quality products are going to be your best bet.

A great example of this is Tequila. £10 bottom shelf tequila normally tastes horrible and makes you feel horrible. We have all had those nights out shooting low quality tequila and waking up with the taste of sick in your mouth and head throbbing.

That’s because most bottom shelf tequilas are mixto tequila. Meaning half tequila. It has half agave and half cheap sugar in the mix prior to fermentation. Once you swap that out for pure 100% agave tequila the difference is massive. A bottle may cost you £15 instead of £10 but the difference is absolutely huge.

5. Find your preference

A great way of cutting back on your alcoholic intake is to find a favour that you love! A lot of the time when I'm behind the bar, people ask me for recommendations and I say “Sure! What do you like?” Often they reply with the generic, “gin, vodka, tequila ect.” It’s a difficult response. Especially when it comes to cutting back.

However, if you have a flavour that you love then you can use that to make boozy drinks, High ABV cocktails, Low ABV cocktails or even on-alcoholic cocktails.

Try out different flavours to find something you love. This could be orange, pineapple, lychee, coconut, passionfruit, raspberry or so on and so on. Once you find that flavour that you love, cutting back on your alcohol will be a breeze. Because the thing you love will still be in the drink!

To Sum Up…

To sum up, becoming a mindful drinker doesn’t have to mean going sober. Instead it’s about finding a healthy relationship with alcohol. Which is easy to do with the following bullet points;