New Year’s Eve is right around the corner! Have you planned your celebration yet? Are you having a big party at your home, or going out for New Year’s Eve? Will you dress up like a celebrity, or just wear jeans and relax? Do you plan to listen to a band or just play the radio or some ITunes?
And, for the biggest question of all, what will you drink all night? Will you drink alcoholic beverages? Good question. Many of you are recalling last year’s New Year’s Day, when you woke up at 1 pm to a terrible hangover and a house that looks like 20 screaming kids tore it apart for ten hours. (It must have been some party!) It took you three hours to clean up the mess, and you had to drink five virgin mary tomato juices before you even had the slightest feeling that you might make it through the day.
Maybe you can’t drink alcoholic beverages for New Year’s Eve. If you’re a member of AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, you’ve got greener pastures to find with a new alcohol free life. You’re still on probation for drinking and driving and you need to stay alcohol free this year. Perhaps some medication you are taking dictates that you don’t mix it with alcohol.
Or, it could just be that you just don’t want to drink this year for New Year’s Eve. You’ve decided there is much more to fun than getting drunk and you want to dry your hand at a dry and sober New Year’s eve, to start off your New Year’s resolutions right! Or, you would rather avoid the calories in alcoholic beverages. What will you drink all evening then?
Here are ten nonalcoholic beverage ideas for New Year’s Eve…
1. Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider. This is the best champagne alternative out there. The sparkling cider tastes a little like good champagne, but has no alcohol! This means, if you’re having a party with people under 21 and over 21, everyone can drink the same beverage! This is a great alcoholic beverage alternative for toasting at midnight. Just make sure you still have the champagne glasses to put it in!
What is interesting about Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider is that you can now get more hip flavors. For instance, Apple-Pomegranate is a new one to try.
2. Sparkling Grape Juice. If you don’t care for apple juice, but still want the sparkle, try sparkling grape juice. This will have more of a wine flavor, but tastes great! The best thing is, it’s alcohol free! This would be a great alternative for a New Year’s eve dinner, especially with a meal that calls for red wine.
3. Grape juice. If you can’t drink red wine, you can still drink grape juice. You can even put it in a wine glass and no one will ever know the difference. There are lots of different variations of grape juice, such as cran-grape juice or raspberry-grape juice. Try some out!
4. Virgin frozen drinks. Lots of people like to drink strawberry daiquiris and pina coladas on New Year’s eve, particularly those who are celebrating in Miami or in the Bahamas, for instance. It’s still warm there, so the hot drinks aren’t necessary. Just use the pina colada mix and forget the rum!
5. Virgin coffee drinks. Just because you can’t add amaretto or kahlua to your coffee doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy after dinner coffee drinks just as much on New Year’s eve. Your holiday alcoholic drink can become nonalcoholic but just as tasty. All you need is the coffee flavoring like you find at Starbuck’s or Border’s. They even have a nonalcoholic amaretto flavor, as well as vanilla and hazelnut.
6. Sparkling water. Believe it or not, you can drink Evian or another sparkling water and be quite content. You’ll skip lots of the calories, and will thus have a low-calorie alcohol free beverage. To spice it up, try adding a lemon slice or lime slice, or even an orange.
7. The good ol’ Shirley Temple or Roy Roger’s. All you need for a Shirley Temple is sprite or 7up, and some grenadine, a cherry-flavored syrup. That’s what tradition calls for. I suggest using real cherry juice instead, and squeezing a bit of lemon juice into the mix. Add cherry and lemon slice for garnish. For a Roy Roger’s, you just substitute Cola for the Sprite.
8. A homemade smoothie. You can get everyone else at the New Year’s eve party jealous when they see your real fruit beverage. Just take some fruit you like and add some pineapple or apple juice and put it into the blender. Try mangoes and peaches, with a bit of sugar, for an excellent combination.
9. Flavored milkshake. You can take vanilla ice cream, half and half creamer or milk, and the coffee flavorings from above to make a great milkshake. Try a hazelnut or amaretto flavored shake! Feels like an after dinner frozen drink.
10. Fruit drink. You can take sprite and add cranberry juice to make a nice fruit drink that would compare to a wine spritzer, which is white wine with sprite added. Or, you could even use orange juice to make it similar to the Mimosa, orange juice and champagne.
