Easy Mocktail Recipes For New Year's Eve

Post in partnership with Studio.co.uk

Let’s talk about choosing not to drink alcohol at Christmas. As someone who made the conscious decision to give up alcohol over seven years ago now, the festive season means one thing. Explaining to people why you’re not drinking. Especially as a 35-year-old female, responding as their eyes slowly divert down to your belly, which is actually, in fact, choosing to hold a food baby instead of a real life human.

I choose not to drink for various reasons, many of which I’ve spoken about this blog post, but the main one being my anxiety seems to treble the next day – beer fear is real people. So, I stick to mocktails, have a great night, drive home and go about my business the next day without the overwhelming sinking feeling I used to get, as I drifted into a black hole of regret.

To celebrate another alcohol-free Christmas, I thought I’d pull together some of my favourite mocktail recipes, including the Orangeberry Squeeze I’m sitting sipping now at 10.30am. You see that’s the beauty of a mocktail, you can drink in the morning and still do an emergency dash to Aldi to grab prawns and smoked salmon for Christmas dinner.

This post is actually my final collaboration with Studio.co.uk, after working for not one, but two years as a brand ambassador for them. I don’t take partnerships lightly here on Apartment Number 4 because I always want to showcase products and services that I would want my friends to buy. I said at the beginning of our partnership in June 2018, and I’ll say it again now, the quality of the products for the price you pay is absolutely amazing.

So, today I wanted to share some of my bar cart updates from Studio, alongside five of my favourite easy mocktail recipes for a sober new years eve.

Blueberry Moscow Mule

Ingredients:

Ginger Ale

Blueberries

Lime

1 x teaspoon sugar

Preparation: Crush the blueberries, sugar and lime juice together before adding ice and ginger ale.

Orangeberry Squeeze

Ingredients:

Equal measure of fresh orange juice

To equal message of cranberry juice

Ice

Squeeze of half a lime

Preparation: Mix the orange and cranberry juice together, and finish with a squeeze of lime juice over ice.

Nojito

Ingredients:

4 tsp caster sugar

100ml lime juice

28g fresh mint, leaves picked and washed, reserving a few sprigs to garnish

Crushed ice

2 limes, cut into wedges

1 litre soda water

Preparation: Put the mint leaves, lime juice and sugar in the bottom a 1 litre jug and muddle. Add ice and top with soda water.

Shirley Temple

Ingredients:

Grenadine

Lemon & lime soda

Ginger Ale

Preparation: Mix together over ice and add two glacier cherries on a cocktail stick

Appletini

Ingredients:

Apple juice

Sugar

Squeeze of fresh lemon juice

A slice of apple

Preparation: Squeeze half a lemon and mix with pinch of sugar, before adding the apple juice in a martini glass. Garnish with sugar around the rim of the glass and a garnish of sliced apple

Having tried and tested all of these easy mocktail recipes over the years, I can say first hand that not only are they delicious, they’re easy to make and inexpensive to buy. Below I have listed the bar cart essentials I picked up from Studio.co.uk, with many pieces in the sale for you to grab before New Year’s Eve. Do let me know which of these is a favourite of yours (mine is Orangeberry Squeeze) and have a fantastic festive period celebrating.

Ravenhead Set of 4 Rum Glasses £11.99 | Timeless Whisky Decanter £21.99 | Timeless 1.2 Litre Glass Jug £14.99 | Eat & Be Merry Cheeseboard £12.99