We've made a lot of mocktails over the years, and for most of that time, we've been making them wrong. They tasted like fruit juice with extra steps. We've come around to thinking the whole category needs a different approach, and we're sharing what we've learned because we wish someone had told us earlier.
The problem with most mocktails
Open most cocktail menus and you'll find the non-alcoholic section labeled something polite like "Zero Proof" or "Mindful Drinks" or "Spirit-Free". The actual drinks in that section are usually:
- Fruit puree, citrus juice, sugar, and soda water
- Fancy iced tea with mint
- "Virgin" something (one of the sadder framings in beverage history)
- A 28-ringgit fruit juice
These taste fine. They also taste like nothing complicated is happening. From what we've come to think, that's the actual problem: the drinks are solving for "no alcohol" instead of "a drink worth ordering."
What's actually missing
A cocktail without alcohol loses three things at once:
- Body. Alcohol gives weight and warmth.
- Bitterness. Most aperitifs and digestifs are at least partly bitter, and non-alcoholic versions don't have to be bland.
- Complexity through fermentation or aging. Most spirits carry years of barrel work.
Most mocktail recipes only try to replace the body with sweetness and texture (more fruit, more soda, sometimes coconut cream). They ignore bitterness and complexity entirely. That's why the result feels like a refreshment instead of an experience.
Solving for complexity instead of sweetness
Three tools we've come to lean on heavily.
Acid. Not just citrus. Acid in many forms. Vinegar (shrubs, drinking vinegars), verjuice, fresh tamarind, lacto-fermented juices, kombucha (our notes on brewing it here). Acid adds the ping that makes a sip feel deliberate.
Salt. A tiny amount, often as a saline solution (1g salt per 100ml water, dropper-dispensed). Salt suppresses bitterness slightly and amplifies aromatic notes. Most mocktails are too sweet partly because they lack salt to bring out their other elements.
Bitterness. Non-alcoholic bitters exist now. Even a few drops of an aromatic blend changes a fruit-and-soda drink into something with depth. Failing that: tonic water (quinine), chinotto, strong cold-brewed coffee, or a dash of unsweetened cranberry.
Two we've been happy with
Pandan-coconut sour:
- 40ml fresh young coconut water
- 30ml fresh lime juice
- 15ml pandan syrup, light (how we make it)
- 5ml verjuice (or dry white grape juice)
- 3 drops saline solution
- 1 dash NA bitters
- Egg white (optional, for foam)
Shake hard. Double strain into a coupe. Garnish with a pandan leaf. The drink doesn't taste sweet. It tastes deep, with pandan sitting back, lime forward, and a slight salinity that makes everything else more vivid.
Kopi-O kosong negroni:
- 30ml strong kopi-O kosong, cold (on kopi here)
- 30ml chilled hibiscus tea
- 10ml gula melaka syrup (on gula melaka here)
- 5ml apple cider vinegar
- Soda to top
Build over ice. Stir gently. Tastes like a Negroni rendered through an entirely Malaysian vocabulary. Coffee bitterness instead of Campari. Hibiscus instead of vermouth. Vinegar for the structure.
What we got wrong
For about a year we built a "non-alcoholic Old Fashioned" using non-alcoholic whisky-style spirits. It always tasted hollow. We eventually realized we were trying to substitute the alcohol directly, when really we should have been building a different drink entirely. The Old Fashioned is the spirit. You can't subtract it cleanly.
A better non-alcoholic move when you want that aged-spirit feel: build around strong tea, gula melaka, and bitters. Not "an Old Fashioned without whisky", but a drink that occupies the same evening slot.
An invitation
The non-alcoholic category is wide open right now. Not many Malaysian bars are taking it seriously yet. What that means: if you're building these at home, you might be doing better work than what's on most menus.
If you've built a savoury mocktail you're proud of, send us the recipe. We'd genuinely like to drink it.