Non-Alcoholic Christmas Drinks, When Half the Room Is Not Drinking
By Jodie Smith, Product & Hamper Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.
Non-alcoholic Christmas drinks work best built like a wine list: one long drink from a syrup and soda water, one iced tea by the jug, one pot of tea late in the day. Two products cover most of it, and you want about a litre a head.
The person not drinking at Christmas has usually been handed the same three things for years: lemonade, orange juice, or a soft drink poured into a wine glass so it looks like something. The drink is rarely the problem; the lack of thought is. A good non-alcoholic drink has the same shape as a cocktail: something sharp, something aromatic, something long and cold to carry it, and enough of it to last an afternoon.
We treat non-alcoholic as a category rather than a footnote, which is why non-alcoholic hampers get a range of their own instead of a leftover column. The same thinking works on a drinks table at home. Here is what to build one from, in the order you would buy it.
One good syrup does most of the work
A syrup earns its place ahead of everything else on a non-alcoholic drinks table, because it turns soda water into a drink rather than a stand-in for one. Bacanha Sirop Brut de Mojito is the bottle we keep coming back to. It is organic, made in France, alcohol free, and the ingredient list is short enough to read out loud: organic sugar cane, water, natural flavourings of mint, lemon and lime extract, citric acid, and a natural chilli pepper flavouring you notice at the back of the throat rather than on the tongue. Bacanha Sirop Brut makes raw syrups, which is why it tastes of mint and lime before it tastes of sugar.
Bacanha's own measure is 20 to 30ml a glass, adjusted to how strong you want it, which comes out at 13 to 20 drinks from the 400ml bottle. In Australian spoons that is one to one and a half tablespoons. Pour it over a full glass of ice first, top with soda water, stir, then taste before you add more.
Two practical notes. Syrup sinks, so stir from the base before you hand the glass over, or the first mouthful is soda water and the last one is dessert. And once opened, the bottle wants using within two months, kept clean, dry and cool, which in December here means the fridge.
The jug that gets you through the afternoon
Iced tea is the drink that scales. It sits in a jug, needs no shaking, and is the one non-alcoholic option adults refill without being asked twice. Whittard of Chelsea instant tea in mango and passionfruit is the shortcut, because it is a powder rather than leaves: no brewing, no straining, no waiting for a pot to cool in a hot kitchen. Whittard's measure is three heaped teaspoons, about 20g, to a mug, and the 450g tin runs to roughly 22 of them, hot or cold.
To make it by the jug, scale that measure to the glasses you are filling, slake it in a splash of warm water so it cannot clump, then top up with cold water and more ice than looks reasonable. Cut fruit does the rest: lime wheels, mint, and a wide strip of orange peel dropped in whole.
Late in the day, once the food is done and people have moved into the shade, the drink changes. Whittard Christmas Tea is 75g of loose black tea blended with vanilla, cloves and citrus, in an embossed tin with a domed lid that stacks. Brewed strong and left to cool it makes a better iced tea than most things sold as one, which is more use in an Australian December than a hot pot. The rest of what we range for this sits under tea and coffee.
The vessel matters as much as what goes in it
Glass by a pool is a bad idea, and glass on a lawn with children running across it is worse. The Royal Ascot acrylic scallop pitcher at $39.95 is what we put out instead: scalloped and cut so it reads as glass from a metre away, and it does not shatter when it goes over. Matching acrylic scallop tumblers are $7.95 each.
Put the jug where people can reach it. A drinks table on the kitchen bench needs a host standing at it; one on the outside table, with something salty beside it, refills itself. We set the salty half out as a Christmas drinks board of truffle chips and macadamias.
What to pour, and when
| When | What to pour | What it needs |
| As people arrive | Mojito syrup, soda water, ice, mint | 20 to 30ml of syrup a glass |
| Through lunch | Mango and passionfruit iced tea | One jug per six people, made ahead |
| Mid-afternoon | The same iced tea, longer, over more ice | A second jug and more cut citrus |
| Late afternoon | Spiced Christmas tea, hot or over ice | A pot, and something sweet beside it |
| All day | Cold water with orange and mint | The pitcher, refilled before it empties |
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Questions we get asked
What non-alcoholic drinks should I serve at Christmas?
Three, and no more. A long drink built from a syrup and soda water as people arrive, a jug of iced tea that stays on the table through lunch, and spiced tea late in the afternoon. Keep a pitcher of cold water with orange and mint alongside all three, and you have covered every hour without anybody making drinks to order. The running order for the food is in our guide to Christmas food in Australia.
How do I make a Christmas mocktail without a cocktail cabinet?
One syrup, one bottle of soda water, ice and something green. Pour 20 to 30ml of mojito syrup over a glass filled with ice, top with soda, stir from the bottom, then add a lime wheel and a sprig of mint you have clapped once between your palms to wake the oils. That is the method: no shaker, no jigger, no bitters. For a second drink out of the same bottle, make it long with cold tea instead of soda water.
What do you give someone who is not drinking at Christmas?
Something they would have chosen themselves. A syrup, a good tea, a jug and a set of tumblers beat a bottle of sparkling grape juice, because they still get used in January. Our non-alcoholic hampers are built on the same principle, around food and tea rather than around a wine substitute. Half the table will still be on wine and beer, and that is fine. Enjoy responsibly.
How much non-alcoholic drink do I need per person?
For a hot lunch that runs four or five hours, plan on about a litre a head across everything you put out, and more for anyone not drinking at all: they are the ones going back to the jug. Ice is the part people underestimate. Buy twice what looks sensible, because a warm drink does not get finished.
Build the drinks table once
The syrup, the two teas and the pitcher are one order that covers Christmas Day, Boxing Day and every hot Sunday after them. If you are sending it rather than pouring it, our non-alcoholic hampers are packed by hand in Corio, Victoria, and sit alongside the rest of the Christmas hampers. Free Australia-wide shipping on orders over $100, and orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post.