A word about alcohol and health

America is focused in more than a couple of ways on healthier living, and that includes what we drink as well as what we eat and all other aspects of our lifestyles. My own mantra has become, “Drink less to be healthier, but drink better to enjoy it more.” 

Based on what science has learned, U.S. health guidelines recommend that men should consume no more than the equivalent of two 1.5 ounce servings of 80 proof liquor per day (or, roughly, two glasses of wine or beer), and that women should consume no more than half that amount. I take that seriously, and I hope you do, too.

As we are advancing in age, some of my friends have reduced their consumption of alcoholic beverages for health reasons, and—truth told—so have I. That’s only partly due to the health guidelines; it has a lot to do with how overindulging, even occasionally, makes us feel. Other friends, some much younger than I, have decided for various reasons to stop drinking entirely. Still others never drank at all, and some are recovering alcoholics; I stand with those dear people and admire that, despite their personal battles, they remain friendly and tolerant of my fascination with “adult beverages.” Thank you to those exceptional friends—you know who you are.  

I’m going to include lower- and no-alcohol cocktail recipes in this blog, as well as links to resources for such recipes. And I’ll identify them as such in headlines, categories, and tags. Please note that I’m eschewing the term “low-alcohol,” because there is no legal or medical definition of low-alcohol cocktails. I’ll just use the term “lower-alcohol” when wine or spirits with less than 25 percent alcohol by volume (50 proof) are the dominant ingredient.

Frankly, the very notion of an alcoholic cocktail is “diluted alcohol.” Throughout cocktail history (most notably, Prohibition), dilution of hard liquor with wines, juices, syrups, bitters, and tinctures served to make the booze itself more palatable. That was an ironic turnabout, because distilled alcohol was itself—hundreds and thousands of years ago—a vehicle to make various herbal medicines more palatable, or at least to reward compliance with a buzz. But current health guidelines say that the human liver has limited capacity to metabolize alcohol, so why not stretch your daily allocation by having it in a cocktail instead of pounding it straight or on the rocks?

There is no reason in the world that “I don’t drink” or “I’m cutting back” should consign a person to drinking boring things while friends enjoy tasty, beautiful, but boozy cocktails. The core concept of a cocktail is “delicious and beautiful,” so here’s to low- and no-alcohol cocktails that make you happy while your friends ooh and aaah, regardless of what they’re drinking.