Healthy Cocktails: Easy & Fun Recipes for All-Natural, Low-Sugar, Low-Alcohol Drinks
By Matt Dorsey and Jenny Dorsey
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About this ebook
This photo-filled recipe book takes the guilt out of happy hour!
These genuinely tasty cocktails use minimal added sugar, all-natural ingredients, and a mix of liquor and low-alcohol spirits to make drinking feel like the easiest diet to maintain.
Most of the fifty recipes (and bonus recipes) contain five ingredients or less, most requiring fewer than three steps, so you'll be able to make most of these drinks quickly and with little effort.
Recipes range from reinterpreted classics, like the Old Fashioned, to millennial favorites like green juice spritzers, using vodka, gin, rum, bourbon, rye, scotch, tequila, and mezcal. Other recipes include:
- Raspberry Sour
- Spicy Bee’s Knees
- Coconut Water Colada
- Blackberry Smash
- Sugar-Free Paloma
- Taste of the Tropics
- Eat Your Peas
- Gotham Sunset
- Ramos Gin Fizz
- The Green Hour
- Mint Julep
- And more!
With a mix of cocktails for all occasions, from drinking al fresco to a warm night cap, Healthy Cocktails is perfect year-round, day or night, and will surely shake up your happy hour!
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Healthy Cocktails - Matt Dorsey
Copyright © 2019 by Matthew and Jenny Dorsey
Photographs copyright © 2019 by Jenny Dorsey, unless otherwise noted
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.
Skyhorse Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com.
Skyhorse® and Skyhorse Publishing® are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.
Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Laura Klynstra and Brian Peterson
Cover photo credit: Jenny Dorsey
Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-4494-3
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-4495-0
Printed in China
To those like me who shied away from their creativity: let it loose!
—Matt
CONTENTS
Introduction
How to Use this Book
Marathons & Mixology: About the Mixologist
Cocktails 101
Tools
Glassware
Terminology
Base Recipes, Specialty Ingredients & Brands
Syrups
Liquor Infusions
Specialty Ingredients
Alcohols
Vodka & Gin
Vodka
Gin
Whisk(e)ys
Bourbon
Scotch
Rye
Irish Whiskey
Tequila & Mezcal
Rum
Other Base Spirits
About the Authors
Index
Conversion Charts
INTRODUCTION
At its core, cocktail culture is about relaxing, sipping on something delicious, and having a bit of fun. That spirit guides our interpretation of healthy in this book, too: combining the goodness of less-processed, lower-calorie, and more nutritionally dense ingredients with both classic and experimental styles of beverage to take the edge off without compromising any New Year’s resolutions or fitness goals. To me, having control over every part of the cocktail—from choosing quality liquor to mastering flavorful infusions, tinctures, and syrups—is the best way to maximize taste without sacrificing flavor and enjoyment.
I don’t wish a life of vodka-sodas on anyone, but I do appreciate the simplicity of that drink. That’s why the recipes in this book are unfussy and easy to whip up for either a solo tipple or a group gathering. They also emphasize freshness in the form of juices or whole fruits and vegetables. I’ve also taken refined sugar out of the equation by making syrups from natural alternatives like monk fruit or xylitol (derived from birch trees), removing premade mixers, and shying away from high-sugar liqueurs and amaros. In some instances, I’ve removed the alcohol altogether in favor of zero-proof mocktails that are still multilayered and flavorful but contain few to no calories. This does require a little bit of extra effort, but I think it’s well worth it in delicious liquid results.
Living a healthy life necessitates a sustainable lifestyle, and these cocktails aim to find that balance of allowing some indulgences without causing you to guiltily reflect back on a night’s fun. I hope you enjoy the heck out of each beverage, knowing you don’t need to count calories, and learn some novel new techniques and tricks along the way. Ultimately, these recipes are meant to set a foundation for healthy cocktails, and I leave it up to you to imbue them with your own whims and personality, whether you choose a more seasonally appropriate fruit for a smash or switch up a spice for a syrup. The possibilities are endless, which is why I’ve concocted this useful flavor profile and cocktail-style matrix to help categorize the recipes of this book and serve as a jumping-off point for your own future creations.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
Photo credit: Dion Trinidad
MARATHONS & MIXOLOGY
About the Mixologist
The first time I ever served a cocktail to anyone besides myself and my then-girlfriend, now-wife, Jenny, was at our inaugural pop-up dinner. That was back in 2014, many moons and hundreds of events ago, when the two of us first had the (slightly harebrained) idea to start hosting food- and drink-centric events. We started first out of our home, gathering small groups of people who wanted something deeper and more thoughtful than the regular ol’ weather-and-subway conversation, then slowly migrated into venues across the world (some of my personal favorites include an island hotel in Nicaragua, an abandoned warehouse in San Francisco, and a multi-floor museum in NYC). You could say it was the ultimate trial by fire; not only was this an exercise in vulnerability and openness for me—I was doing something I was actively interested in but completely new to sharing with others—but it was also a learning curve to see if and how Jenny and I could work together to build something to bring out both our creative sides.
I still remember what I made: two cocktails, one called Cloak & Swagger, the other Oriental, both from the secret recipe book of mixologist Greg Best (then of Atlanta’s Holeman and Finch Public House). Until I had met him a year or so prior, I only considered myself a good drinker—not particularly discerning, nor particularly interested in knowing more. When I wandered into his bar, right around the corner from where I lived, his obvious love for craft cocktails and deep knowledge of the space pulled me in immediately. When you ordered any drink, he would tell you its origin story, how he made every single ingredient—bitters, syrups, infusions—and why it made sense for the ethos of his bar. That