Dry January: alcohol-free drinks to make at home

What Dry January is

Dry January is a challenge run by Alcohol Change UK, which describes it as a 31-day break from alcohol at the start of the year. This guide does not make claims about what a month off does for you; it covers what to make and how to make it carefully.

The useful habit carries over from cocktail making: measure every part, change one thing at a time and write down what you did. A drink built from a clear ratio is easy to repeat for one glass or a jug.

Grove Fix: a stirred alcohol-free drink

The Grove Fix in our recipe library follows Seedlip’s published recipe: 60 ml Seedlip Grove 42, 10 ml Monin Blood Orange syrup, 15 ml Monin Bitter and 30 ml rooibos tea. Stir with ice in a mixing glass, strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice and finish with a shiso leaf or a blood orange wheel.

Each part has a job: a citrus-led non-alcoholic base, a little sweetness, a bitter modifier and rooibos tea. If it tastes too sweet or too bitter, change one measured component and record it, so you can tell which change made the difference.

Spice & Tonic: a two-part highball

The Spice & Tonic in our recipe library is 50 ml Seedlip Spice 94 and 125 ml Indian tonic water over ice with a red grapefruit twist, a 1:2.5 ratio. Measuring the tonic rather than “topping up” keeps the drink consistent from glass to glass.

Because it is a ratio, it scales. For four glasses, the same proportions give 200 ml of base to 500 ml of tonic; build each glass separately so the tonic stays lively.

A warm option: spiced juice punch

For a cold evening, the German Kinderpunsch published by Öko-Test warms 1 litre of grape or apple juice with 3 lemon slices, a small diced apple, 1 Ceylon cinnamon stick and 2 cloves. Steep for at least an hour, reheat and strain. Sweeten only at the end if needed, and dilute with fruit or herbal tea if it is too sweet.

Do not make an alcohol-free drink by heating wine: our mulled cider and wine guide explains why a large share of the alcohol remains after simmering.

Kombucha basics, and the alcohol question

Kombucha is sweetened tea fermented with a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, often called a SCOBY. The University of Georgia Cooperative Extension’s home recipe uses black or green tea, sugar, starter liquid from a previous batch, a SCOBY and clean potable water, and ferments for 7–10 days at 68–77 °F (20–25 °C).

Its safety points are specific: use a tested recipe and good hygiene, check that the starter liquid has a pH of 4.0 or lower, use commercially produced tea, and do not halve the recipe. Flavour only after fermentation; flavoured kombucha should be refrigerated and drunk within 2 days. Plain finished kombucha keeps refrigerated at 40 °F (4 °C) or below for up to 30 days.

The extension notes the culture produces trace amounts of alcohol, and that longer fermentation produces more. Following its recipe and 7–10 day schedule, it reports less than 0.016% ABV; untested recipes and longer ferments can produce more. The US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau treats kombucha at 0.5% ABV or more as an alcohol beverage and notes that alcohol can rise after bottling through continued fermentation in the bottle.

So if you are avoiding alcohol completely, homemade kombucha is not a guaranteed zero. The extension also says kombucha may not suit everyone, including people with compromised immune systems, pregnant women and children, and suggests asking a healthcare professional if you have concerns.

Planning a month of alcohol-free drinks

Keep a short list of bases and modifiers you like, and write each drink as millilitres rather than “a splash”. For shop-bought alcohol-free products, check the alcohol content stated on each label rather than assuming every product is the same.

Batch the parts that keep and mix the rest to order. A cooled pot of rooibos tea for the Grove Fix, or a strained jug of spiced juice punch kept in the fridge, saves time; carbonated mixers such as tonic are best measured into each glass as it is served. Label every jug with what is in it and the day it was made.

Hosting? Put the alcohol-free options first on the table rather than as an afterthought, give them proper glasses and garnishes, and make sure nobody has to explain why they are choosing one.

If you brew, January can still be a planning month: read up on a style, design a recipe or practise with the calculators without drinking anything.