At the beginning of 2020 I developed Covid for a long time and I could no longer tolerate alcohol. In my experience, it was one of the triggers of relapses so severe that I would be incapacitated for a long time with renewed symptoms of extreme fatigue, brain fog, tachycardia, and more. As a food and drink writer, this was a particularly troubling work challenge: How could I make recipes I couldn’t always have?
The tea cabinet provided endless inspiration. Tea has long permeated alcoholic beverages with both tannic qualities and aromatic range. (Think whiskey-laced toddies or 17th-century batch drinks like Regent’s Punch.) They can also bring a wide variety of depth and character to non-alcoholic drinks.
“Tea is a really good way to work complexity into a cocktail,” says John deBary, a bar expert in New York City, author and founder of the non-alcoholic beverage brand Proteau. “Black tea, green tea and Lapsang souchong are all really good things when I make a non-alcoholic drink.”
Whether your tea is bagged or loose-leaf, a household blend or single origin from a specific region and terroir, Mr. deBary suggests thinking about its application: the more ingredients in a drink, the less emphasis is placed on the specific taste of the tea. Although he often works with specialty teas, he emphasized that “the best tools are what you have with you.”
Once you’ve chosen your tea, you can bring out the flavor by using one of two extraction methods, hot or cold. Stewing tea leaves in hot water before straining provides an immediate benefit: the tea component of your drink is ready to use (after cooling to room temperature). The longer and therefore stronger tea, you also get a stronger tea flavor and, often, more tannins, which can give your non-alcoholic drink a spicy mouthfeel.
If you use the tea in a mixed drink with many components, the hot method is fine. However, if you have the time and don’t want to risk extracting your tea too much (and creating an astringent infusion), Mr. deBary recommends the cold brew method: combine tea with cold water and let it sit in the fridge overnight. stand.
Experiment with complementary flavors to create tea-based drinks. Mr. deBary often combines green tea with grapefruit or black tea with lemon. Chamomile, floral and botanical, blends particularly well with a vegetable celery-simple syrup and fresh lime in a non-alcoholic Celery Sour, while the tannins in strongly brewed black tea play well with a spiced, salted lime juice and ginger beer in an alcohol-free Dark’ n’ Stormy Mocktail.
Today, after about a year of not drinking and a slow road to regaining my tolerance, I can drink alcohol again without worrying about a relapse of symptoms, although I still take much smaller measures than my pre-long Covid body allowed.
The Celery Sour mocktail, in particular, has become a recent favorite: I pour the drink as it is for myself and add a splash of mezcal or gin to my partner’s as we both lift our light green chamomile-laced glasses to complexity, the character and nuance that tea offers to drinks across the alcohol spectrum.
Recipes: Celery Sour Mocktail † Dark ‘n’ Stormy Mocktail