This Ain't No Shirley Temple: A Mocktail for Grown-Ups

While I cherish our pre-Thanksgiving tradition of throwing back some bourbon while polishing the silver and getting the table ready, I'm not always ready to leap into a second day of imbibing while there are still food-type things occurring in the kitchen. I have too much respect for hot stoves and sharp knives. That being said, the holiday calls for something festive to drink; and if you're cooking responsibly and want your guests to both feel welcome and be okay to drive home later, you might want to start with a signature mocktail. 

The very word makes me roll my eyes 99% of the time - if you're over 10 and think a Shirley Temple* is a fancy treat, most mocktail recipes were designed with you in mind. They're rarely anything more than fancied-up pop served in a glass you have to hand wash. In my experience, mocktails have been too sweet, too simple, and too - well, childish - to replace an actual cocktail. 

After much scouring of the internet, I'm delighted to be proven wrong by this recipe, which features non-alcoholic gin - something I surely never envisioned myself purchasing - which adds a level of complexity to this drink and really makes it feel like a drink for a special day. The only annoying ingredient is juniper berries, which I happened to have in my pantry but have since found very hard to replace; none of the bougie stores near me carry them and I had to resort to amazon.com for a replacement batch (sorry, Penzey's - I just couldn't bring myself to fight the traffic to give you my business). 

As with most cocktail recipes these scale up easily, and will make the entire holiday crowd marvel at the fact that they're non-alcoholic. You could, of course, add Actual Gin to make it a cocktail, and those are delightful too. 

This recipe comes from Southern Living and is attributed to Austin bar owner Chris Marshall. The link from the syrup recipe is super-annoyingly broken so it took a bit of digging to find the actual drink recipe, which I have thoughtfully included below.  

Berry Juniper Fizz Mocktail

For the juniper syrup: 

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
2 tablespoons crushed juniper berries 

Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat, stir in the juniper berries, and steep for 30 minutes. Strain and store in the fridge until you run out because it's good in everything. 

For the mocktail: 

1 oz. juniper syrup
1 oz gin (NA or regular)
2 oz. pomegranate juice 
1/2 oz. orange juice 
Cranberry sparkling juice 

In a cocktail shaker, shake the first 4 ingredients with ice until frothy. Strain into a coupe glass and top with cranberry sparkling juice. 

If you're not using a coupe - and frankly, who is? - the proportion we ended up using in my vintage don't-know-the-name-of-the-glass barware was about 1 part shaken ingredients to 2 parts sparkling juice. We also made these as a large batch so we didn't shake them over ice, and it was just fine. 

* I adore Shirley Temple. I have a box set of DVDs of many of her movies in all their problematic glory.