Mocktail
Non-alcoholic cocktail.
What is Mocktail? A mocktail is a non-alcoholic mixed drink built in cocktail style, with 0% ABV by definition. The word itself is a portmanteau of "mock" and "cocktail," and Merriam-Webster traces its first recorded use to 1916. You will also hear these drinks called virgin cocktails, temperance drinks, or zero-proof cocktails, all pointing to the same idea: the craft and presentation of a cocktail without the alcohol. Built from juices, syrups, sodas, bitters, purees, herbs, and shrubs, a well-made mocktail aims for the same balance of sweet, sour, bitter, and aromatic complexity as its spirited counterpart.
Origins and Evolution
Non-alcoholic mixed drinks are not a modern invention — they grew up alongside cocktails themselves. Jerry Thomas's Bar-Tenders Guide of 1862, the first published bartending manual, already included temperance recipes for guests who wanted the ritual without the spirit. For more than a century these drinks lived quietly in the margins of bar culture, treated as an accommodation rather than a category in their own right.
The 1980s brought a mocktail resurgence, though that era leaned heavily on sweet, sugary formulas — think grenadine-and-soda combinations served with a cherry. The picture changed after the craft-cocktail movement of the 2000s, when bartenders began applying the same ingredient-driven, technique-first thinking to zero-proof drinks. The result is a far more refined category, where bitterness, acidity, and texture matter as much as flavor.
Classic Examples and Ingredients
The canon includes the Shirley Temple, made with grenadine and ginger ale; the Roy Rogers, its cola-based counterpart; the Virgin Mary, a non-alcoholic Bloody Mary; the Virgin Pina Colada; and the Arnold Palmer, blending iced tea and lemonade. These drinks established the vocabulary of the category and still anchor most mocktail menus today.
Modern builds draw on a wider palette: fresh juices, house-made syrups, tonic and soda, non-alcoholic bitters, fruit and vegetable purees, fresh herbs, and shrubs — vinegar-based fruit syrups that add the kind of sharp, savory backbone normally provided by spirits. It is also worth distinguishing mocktails from non-alcoholic spirits such as Seedlip and Lyre's. Those are standalone products, though they are often used as the base ingredient in contemporary mocktails.
Cultural Context Today
The category has moved firmly into the mainstream. According to Mintel, alcohol-free mixed drinks on US bar and restaurant menus grew 35% between 2016 and 2019, and by 2019 at least four bars in New York City were serving mocktails exclusively. That kind of dedicated venue would have been hard to imagine a generation earlier.
The drivers behind this growth are cultural rather than purely culinary. The Dry January movement, the broader sober-curious shift, and rising attention to health and wellness have all reframed the non-alcoholic drink as a deliberate choice rather than a fallback. For a wine and spirits shop, mocktails sit naturally alongside the rest of the bar — same glassware, same craft, simply a different brief.
