Bello Limoncello

Pepsi gets into the craft cola game…AGAIN. It’s hard to imagine the #41 company on the fortune 500 list started as “Brad’s Drink” in a North Carolina pharmacy. Pepsi 1893 is a throwback, although the trending craft culture of our modern, urban, artisanal landscape might have you believing otherwise. Here’s a quick history lesson. Caleb Davis Bradham mixes sugar, water, caramel, lemon oil, nutmeg and some fizzy water over ice. People fall in love. He sells 20,000 gallons of syrup. The US goes to war. Sugar is rationed. Post war sugar prices skyrocket. Bradham has no choice but to buy the high priced sugar to keep Pepsi-Cola alive. In 1923 Pepsi-Cola goes bankrupt. Scratching your chin? Fascinating, I know. That 17th century startup eventually became a success (as you know) so, think of this reissue as a return to Pepsi’s roots, a testament to perseverance, a set of simplistic natural flavors and a small (pharmacy) batch refreshment. There’s a ginger flavor too.

Yeah, we know, you’ve started your detox. You feel horrible about 2020. You’ve finally admitted to your roomate, or spouse, that your pandemic excuse to imbibe undermined all your positive behavioral aspirations leaving you with bar bottles as low as your self-esteem. First off, buck up. You just made it through one of the the hardest years of your life. Coping mechanisms were expected, that is why they are called that. Now that you’ve coped you are ready for a new, vaccinated year of mindfulness and positive manifestation. Good for you but don’t go too far down the rabbit hole only to hiccup in late January and blow the whole thing. My dad used to say everything in moderation and in most cases that works well. I co-opted that idea making it my own, “drink like an Italian”. Which is to say, cold turkey isn’t your only way to mental and physical bliss. For now, we’ll play along. We’ve corralled our top 5 non-alcoholic (or almost alcohol free) substitutes to aid in your epic January crusade to stay off the hooch.

1. Seedlip is the one we’ve been sipping the longest. A trio of herbaceous concoctions that easily simulate gin and those bitter cocktails you miss most.

2. Kin we’ve not officially tried yet but their commitment to wellness is so deep that we couldn’t even find the “we are a non-alcoholic” description on their website without serious digging. Talk about manifestation. I guess they think their energy communicates their value prop. Ohh sooo modern millennial of them.

3. Monday Gin is our newest fav because we’ve been know to overstock gin like we were headed to an ark during a flood. The art deco labelling lets us feel quite Gatsby while we sip everything from G+T’s to negronis.

4. Haus was started by an old photographer friend of mine and is this lists only low-alcohol choice. Back to that moderation, a full ABV removal isn’t always necessary and this trio of flavors champions the apertif. Again, Drink like an Italian. With flavors like Spiced Cherry, Citrus Flower and Lemon Lavender, you’re bound to find a refreshing pre-dinner sip that gives you enough of what you crave without too much of what you are trying so hard to avoid.

5. Lyre is last on the list and newest to us. They have the most complete range of alternative spirits on our list. Cleverly they used known alcoholic vocabulary to bundle their products and direct us to what we’d like best. Things like the negroni set or the boulevardier set are trifectors substituting each of those critical ingredients to produce a non-alcoholic version of your 2020, mid-week, home, happy-hour ritual. The line up includes a Dry London Spirit, an American Malt, a White Cane Spirit , a Dark Cane Spirit, a Spiced Cane Spirit, a Dry and Rosso Aperitif, a Coffee Liqueur, an Amaretti, an Italian Orange, and finally an Orange Sec. Not surprising, their dry Jan twelve pack is sold out. Regardless if you are an abstainer or a moderator this January, start with the above list for a leg up in your new endeavors.

Our favorite place to start is linked below. That should get you on your way to turning that bad bar into a good czar of mindfulness. Happy sipping.

We don’t really condone soda. It might be one of the worst offensive product types created by us humans. That said, there is a time and a place. For us that was when we were 14 year old BMX rats who spent most of our free time riding fast and jumping off curved stationary objects. aka – We burnt more glycogen than a space shuttle launch. Since those pre-teen days, we’ve cut the soda imbibing down to the random Mexican coke paired with an animal style In and Out burger. But, the nostalgic ring of a Mellow Yellow jingle can still get conjured up pretty fast, especially when you see a move like this. Over the years Mellow Yellow, Coca Cola’s answer to the popularity of Mountain Dew, has gone through it’s iterations of can designs. Initially targeting the post 70’s hippies and then into 80’s surfers. Finally it settled in with a few iterations for the skate and X-games crews of the 90’s and early oughts. The juice hasn’t changed BUT this post was never about that. The new brand graphics are a huge departure from their history. The move puts them squarely into the energy drink line up (although no new energy added). We love the graphics. We love the “MY” double entendre. We can’t say we love the inner contents but sometimes our excitement isn’t just based on taste.

Keeping with this weeks theme, next St. Patrick’s Day be prepared with your own craft brew. The Craft Beer Brewing Kit gives you step-by-step directions how to get the hoppiest, grapefruit infused, saison your tongue has ever tasted. Ok, that’s actually an impossible beer. You’ll have to pick one style for each batch. Choose from a dozen types from Hefeweizen to IPA to Irish Stout and in about 2 weeks time you’ll have your own craft brew ready to drink.