The holiday season may be over, but now as we all are choosing to stay home, maybe you should look up these mocktail recipes to add some cheer to your days.
What are mocktails anyway?
Party talks always include cocktails and mocktails, apart from the food and fun. Cocktails are drinks that contain some amount of alcohol, while mocktails are alcohol-free. Hence, people of all ages can have mocktails, and they can be tasty and exciting. Some mocktails are exotic, and it all boils down to the ingredients used.
They usually contain regular fruit juices, fresh or readymade, some herbs, some veggies or veggie juices, and sweeteners and ice. To use sweeteners or not is a purely personal choice. You could skip them if you want to keep the taste natural. So is the case with using ice; if you do not want to have cold drinks, you could use ingredients at room temperature. Some of these mocktails, however, taste best when chilled. For best results, use ingredients that go well together, prepare juice using a mixer and use some eye-catchy garnishing for the glass topping.
Fruit Punch
A fruit punch is an easy mocktail that can be prepped in a jiffy. All you need is some fresh seasonal fruits.
Ingredients
- 3 or 4 cups of chopped fruits (orange, pineapple, apple, strawberry, etc.)
- 1/2 lemon
- Few sprigs of mint
- Vanilla ice cream (optional)
Blend all fruits to a frothy mixture using a mixer or blender. Mix in the lemon juice, pour into glasses and refrigerate. Serve by garnishing with mint leaves and lemon rinds. Alternately, you could choose to top it with a dollop of ice cream or ice cubes without refrigerating.
Virgin Mojitos
If you prefer the bubbly drinks with soda, you could easily rustle up a Virgin Mojito. It’s refreshing and hardly needs a few ingredients.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup chopped mint leaves
- Pinch of sugar and salt
- 2 cups soda (preferably chilled)
- 3 lemon slices (lemon juice if you prefer that)
Mix the lemon slices/juice, mint leaves, and sugar in a shaker. Lightly crush the contents. Add this mixture with the soda and salt in a vessel and transfer to serving glasses. Optionally, add one or two cucumber slices to the shaker for a variation of freshness. Top it with lemon rinds or ice or serve chilled.
Spicy Guava Mocktail
Ingredients
- 1 cup chopped Guava
- 2 tbsp grated ginger
- 2 tbsp sugar
- A pinch of salt and pepper powder
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
Beat the guava slices with ginger and sugar and strain the juice. Add some water to adjust the consistency, salt, and pepper. Mix in the lemon juice. Pour into glasses, chill and serve or top it with lemon rinds or mint leaves.
Strawberry Margarita
Margaritas are served with some salt on the rim of the glass, which adds to the drink’s taste. To do this, you need to dip the rim of the glasses in lemon juice and then dip it in a plate of salt. Dust off any excess salt so that only the rim is nicely covered with salt around.
Ingredients
1 cup strawberry slices
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp sugar (honey can be used instead)
Blend all the ingredients well, pour into glasses, refrigerate it, and serve chilled. Alternately, you could beat the strawberries with a few ice cubes and serve immediately. Then, garnish them strawberry or lemon slices or mint leaves as you choose.
If you do not want the trouble of blending the fresh fruits, you could easily replace them with readymade juices as well. You could even keep the many flavoured juices and some lemon juice, mint leaves, cucumber slices, etc., handy and offer a ‘make your own mocktail’ option to your guests.
