I gave up drinking 5 years ago. Just didn't want it in my life anymore. Started just feeling ick more often than not even with just a couple drinks. Just stopped feeling worth it. But I loved cocktails.
It's pricey, but they expose me to all the new non-alcohol things out there. It's great if you just want an easy way to get fun new things without thinking too hard about this category.
Also, our very own Justin Kan, is a founder of Woody's Wine (NA): https://woodys.wine
So many good NA beers now. Athletic, Guinness, Heineken, all play well here.
Still looking for a good fake bourbon. My favorite so far is Free Sprits https://drinkfreespirits.com/collections/non-alcoholic-spiri... Fair warning though. None of these fake alcohols drink well on their own. I don't think anyone has a bourbon anyone is going to like on the rocks or neat. But it does well in mocktails.
I highly recommend trying to make some homemade ginger beer. It’s super easy, takes just a few days to ferment, lots of recipes online. Much better than the stuff in the store which is filled with added sugar or artificial sweeteners. Plus you can brew with extra ginger if you like it strong. Whatever you do, don’t ferment it in glass bottles. Use 2 liter plastic soda bottles.
most of the time folks are fermenting ginger beer, it's just to carbonate it. ginger beer isn't usually fermented to produce alcohol like a normal beer.
since there is so much sugar available in ginger beer, fermenting/carbonating it in sealed glass bottles will result in bottle bombs.
skip the fermentation completely: 2 liter plastic soda bottles are great for force-carbonating with a co2 tank. if you really don't like plastic you could find a 1 gallon stainless steel keg and carbonate (and serve) from that.
Probably pointing at exploding bottles; I've made probably 40 batches of ginger beer and when I would 'burp' the bottles I never had an issue. Decided once to try out not doing so and had six hours of clean up. But otherwise you're probably fine. Just let out carbonation morning and night, it takes a minute or so.
You can definitely make ginger beer with wild yeast (fresh ginger root conveniently comes with lots of wild yeasts) and make delicious drinks. There are lots of recipes.
I also recommend, if anyone is interested, investigating “ginger beer plant” (GBP), which is a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts (SCOBY) such as that used to brew kombucha and kefir. It was once common in Britain, but almost went extinct. Some was saved by a German culture bank (DSMZ), and now you can buy some online! Makes a different, and I think delicious, drink compared to the “ginger bug” method!
You don't have to ferment it to get a rich flavor. You just have to use fresh ginger instead of dried or powdered. We make it with Fresh Ginger, Lemon juice, orange juice, cane sugar and molasses. Then force carb.
Perhaps you might enjoy making cocktail yourselves :D
There is /r/Mocktails, imbibe magazine has a alcohol free section with a lot of recipes, and there are books as well - I'd suggest good drinks by Julia Bainbridge and Zero by alinea group-.
My biggest pain point is that there is no high end past Zero. The Julia book is solid.
In actual cocktails, there are a handful of books that are _incredible_ and cater to high end cocktails. I have ~600 bottles at home (I know...) and I really appreciate those books. I'm willing to make cranberry tequila rosemary ice. Or clarify a punch.
Almost every mocktail resource is... quite frankly... too simple. "Add lemon to fake sparking wine to make a delicious French 75!"
This makes sense from sheer numbers. Way less folks making mocktails. I love that Alinea book. Just wish there were good websites out there.
I've started doing spirit free cocktails recently, but I definitely get that there are way less resources than regular cocktails. However, zero has a section on making backbar alcohols such that you might be able to use them on regular cocktails, by substituting the alcohol with their spirit free version. The taste won't be the same of course, and you might have to alter the dosage, but it's better than nothing. Perhaps you won't be able to clarify an alcohol free wine, but I'm sure there are recipes that aren't ruined by replacing alcohol with its non alcoholic version
So we've been experimenting with a ton of things. By far the most fun one is this: https://weareraisingthebar.com/
It's pricey, but they expose me to all the new non-alcohol things out there. It's great if you just want an easy way to get fun new things without thinking too hard about this category.
Also, our very own Justin Kan, is a founder of Woody's Wine (NA): https://woodys.wine
So many good NA beers now. Athletic, Guinness, Heineken, all play well here.
Still looking for a good fake bourbon. My favorite so far is Free Sprits https://drinkfreespirits.com/collections/non-alcoholic-spiri... Fair warning though. None of these fake alcohols drink well on their own. I don't think anyone has a bourbon anyone is going to like on the rocks or neat. But it does well in mocktails.