MOCKTAILS

During my first week as a freshman at Skidmore College, I suggested to my roommate we walk downtown and explore Saratoga Springs. This was 1960, decades before the cultural revitalization of that sleepy upstate New York city as a popular summer retreat, especially in August when you might spot the Crown Prince of Dubai standing behind Jimmy Fallon or next to Bill Parcells at the Trifecta window in Saratoga Race Track.

On that long-ago crisp September day, my new friend and I strolled along Broadway, passing bar after bar. (Urban legend suggested that Saratoga then boasted nearly 100 cocktail lounges.) We paused in front of D’Andrea’s, looked at each other and said, “We’re 18, drinking is legal here, let’s have a pop.” We each ordered a Tom Collins.

Over the next six decades, I rarely missed an evening cocktail. (Or two.) I graduated from sipping Whiskey Sours to Vodka Gibsons to Scotch Old Fashioneds. Here in the Wells woods, one of the highlights of my day was hearing the clink of ice cubes in a glass and Mr. Wonderful hollering, “One olive or two?” 

But when I sat in the cardiologist’s office recently, listening to him describe my “issues,” I wasn’t prepared to hear, “And Val, no more cocktails or wine.  Ever.” 

EVER???? I love my spirits. I love my evening cocktail. I love my Famous Grouse. And I’m no Lillian Roth. Sic transit gloria mundi!

So I decided to make lemonade out of lemons and learn how to concoct Mocktails — delicious drinks without alcohol and a Dry January staple. My friend Jean and I heard about a mixology class in Westbrook, so we drove there and introduced ourselves to Steve Corman, co-owner of Vena’s Fizz House and the self-declared “bitterest man in the world.” 

(Why that name? Steve, a former math teacher and world traveler, has creatively concocted dozens of different flavored bitters which plump a Mocktail with zest and zing. In 2013, he and his wife had opened a nostalgic apothecary-style bar in the Old Port district of Portland which they called Vena’s Fizz House, named after his wife’s temperance-minded great grandmother. Serving primarily non-alcoholic toddies, the bar thrived until Covid. But when “one door shuts, another opens,” so they took space in a former mill in Westbrook and started offering mixology classes, plus online retail of their Mocktail-related products.)

Jean and I sat at a long metal table while Steve told us that Mocktails represent 10% of the “drinking population,” that “infusions (bitters) are the key to a tasty drink,” and that the addition of quinine to a Mocktail aids in “digestion.” (I think even Dr. Fauci would agree that Mocktails are downright healthy.)

Steve poured and we sipped a Maine Margarita laced with blueberry bitters followed by a Maine Maple Fire stoked with syrup, apple cider syrup, lemon juice and Ghost Pepper extract. Not a drop of hooch in either but OH were they tasty. We left with recipes and samples of Rocky Coast Bloody Mary and Blackberry Stinger mixes. (Here’s how easy it is to make them: add boiling water to the mix in the jar, let it steep for two days, then strain into a cocktail glass.)

A week later, friend Kathy G. dropped off a book titled MOCKTAIL PARTY — 75 Plant-Based Non-Alcoholic Recipes for Every Occasion. “I thought you might enjoy this,” she said. I can’t wait to make the Hazelnut Frozen-Tini!

So … I’m now prepared and stocked for whenever the sun goes over the yardarm. Plus I’m following doctor’s orders. Cheers!

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FMI about Mocktail classes (for co-ed gatherings, bridal showers, birthday parties, maybe just you and a pal), plus recipes and products at Vena’s Fizz House in Westbrook, call 887-9618 or visit www.venasfizzhouse.com