CHRISTINE: From the New York Times, you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.
CAIRA: Hey, everyone, it’s The Wirecutter Show. I’m Caira Blackwell.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin. And we work at Wirecutter, the product recommendation site from The New York Times.
CAIRA: Each week, we bring you expert advice from our newsroom of 140 journalists who review everyday products that will make your life better.
CHRISTINE: This episode of The Wirecutter Show is called “Drink Less and Prosper.”
ROSIE: Happy new year, pals.
CAIRA: Happy new year!
CHRISTINE: Wow, 2025. Oh, wow.
ROSIE: Here we come.
CAIRA: Starting off with a bang.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, we’re living in the future.
ROSIE: What are your resolutions? Will either of you be doing dry January?
CHRISTINE: Well…
ROSIE: It is January.
CHRISTINE: The years I’ve tried, I feel like I’ve failed so completely that I don’t want to actually commit. Does that make sense?
CAIRA: Yeah. I also like the idea of not committing.
ROSIE: Completely. That’s why I don’t make resolutions. Well, dry January is something that a lot of folks are doing, and I get it. Actually, I really do because I’ve consistently been seeing reporting every month—it just seems like more and more research comes out about how bad drinking is for us. I find this devastating. It’s really bad.
CAIRA: Can we not have anything anymore? Like, nothing.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, life can’t be fun.
CAIRA: Okay.
CHRISTINE: I feel like that’s…
ROSIE: I think life can be fun.
CAIRA: But just not alcoholic fun.
ROSIE: But just don’t ask me how. Just kidding.
CHRISTINE: So I really identify with this. I have gone on this whole, if we can say a journey, over the past couple of years with alcohol where like a lot of people during the pandemic, I drank a lot, much more actually than I ever had before. I don’t consider myself to have an issue with alcohol, but I did drink a lot. And then ended up having a health scare a couple years ago and started reading a lot about what are the lifestyle factors that could improve my situation. And alcohol kept coming up as the thing you probably should be cutting out. So I’ve gone through lots of phases over the last few years of completely cutting alcohol out, which can be very unfun at dinner parties, honestly. It’s such a bummer. But I kind of feel like this is not just I’m in my 40s, I’m trying to get healthier kind of a thing. Caira, I’m curious what you think because you’re in your 20s. I feel like there is sort of a sobriety movement in younger people at this point.
CAIRA: Yeah. I would say my generation really embraces the California sober, which is when you put the drinks down and you pick up the joint. But I think you’re better than me because I have endometriosis, I’m very open about that. And my doctor was like, “Maybe you should stop drinking all the drinks,” and I was like, “I’ll just cut out tequila.”
CHRISTINE: Well, whether you participate in Dry January or you’re just sober-curious, today, we’re going to go over some strategies for cutting back on alcohol. First, we’re going to bring in Dana G. Smith, a health reporter for The New York Times. She works on the Well Desk, and she’s a wealth of information on the emerging science about how alcohol impacts health. We’re going to talk with Dana about the most important things to know and how even just cutting back a little bit can lower your risk of a bunch of diseases.
CAIRA: That’s right. And then we’re coming in hot with some fun non-alcoholic alternatives you might want to sip on this month and maybe beyond. We’re bringing on Marguerite Preston, who is the senior editor overseeing all of our kitchen and food and drinks coverage. Marguerite leads a team that’s tested dozens of NA drinks for our NA drink reviews, and she’s also a cocktail lover who enjoys a really good NA drink. So she’s had both sides. She’s going to walk us through how to build a great NA bar cart you’ll love and it won’t feel sad.
CHRISTINE: I love this. We’re coming in with the serious you got to know the health implications and then we’re going to get into the fun stuff, right? It’s going to be fun. We’re going to take a quick break and when we’re back, we’ll talk with Dana Smith. We’ll be right back.
CAIRA: Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show. Today, we’re talking with Dana G. Smith, a New York Times reporter specializing in personal health. Over the past couple of years, Dana has reported on the sad but true fact that alcohol is actually worse for us than anyone used to believe and the growing trend of non-alcoholic beverages.
CHRISTINE: Dana, welcome to The Wirecutter Show.
DANA: Thanks so much for having me.
CHRISTINE: It’s great to have you here. I’ve read a lot of your work over the past couple years specifically about this growing body of research that really shows that alcohol, kind of at any level of consumption, is not great for us, which is such a bummer. In the old days, I feel like, to me, the old days for some reason, feel like pre-pandemic, but I don’t know why, but…
CAIRA: No, that’s accurate.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. Is that the old days? I think people used to think that they would associate really heavy drinking with things like liver disease, but we’re now coming to understand that even moderate drinking can lead to risks of several types of cancer, of high blood pressure, of heart disease. So first of all, I want to just ask you, what does moderate drinking really mean?
DANA: That is a harder question to answer than you might think. It really depends on what country you live in. Technically in the US, moderate drinking is one drink or less a day for women, and two drinks or less per day for men. And some people actually think that that is too high, especially the two drinks a day for men. When we start to experience health consequences it is a little bit of a harder question to pin down though. So there’s some evidence that alcohol can start to harm our health even below those levels, but really, we know that the biggest risk is if you drink more than that. So that’s what you really want to try and avoid.
ROSIE: Dana, you mentioned that it depends on where you live. Can you explain why that is?
DANA: Every country sets their moderate drinking levels or their dietary guidelines differently. Recently, there’s been a push in the last couple of years or so to be about 10 drinks a week total for both men and women. So a lot of this is coming out with new research on the health harms of alcohol and countries are really adjusting their national recommendations now to try and keep up with that new research.
CAIRA: I’m oscillating between shock and disappointment because 10 drinks a week seems too high and two drinks seems too little. I don’t know where I stand, actually.
DANA: It’s true. It’s really hard to pin down. That’s what I mean. There is no universal definition of what is moderate or safe drinking. So it really depends country by country. And it’s frustrating and confusing and scientists are trying to adapt as we learn new research.
CAIRA: Well, I think all of us know when we’ve had too much because you wake up and you feel like death, but why is alcohol so bad for us? What does the research show?
DANA: Yeah, so in your body, alcohol is broken down in your liver into a chemical called acetaldehyde. And acetaldehyde is really bad for us. It actually damages your DNA, it prevents the DNA from then repairing itself, and so that can lead to all kinds of problems. We know that excessive alcohol use is associated with problems in the heart, problems in the brain, seven different types of cancer. Acetaldehyde can also cause oxidative stress, which can damage your blood vessels, which is why excessive alcohol use is associated with high blood pressure as well. And you mentioned liver disease earlier. That is definitely where we see the most damage.
CHRISTINE: I also read in one of your pieces about how it kind of also depends on a personal level. Some people metabolize alcohol differently than others. Some people can handle alcohol better than others.
DANA: Yeah. There are two gene variants that we know of that affect how the alcohol is broken down into acetaldehyde, and they’re actually most common in people of Asian descent. But basically what it means is that there’s more acetaldehyde in your body because of how your liver is metabolizing the alcohol. And like I said, acetaldehyde is really bad for you, so having more in your body is also really bad for you. Interestingly, women also appear to metabolize alcohol a little bit differently than men do. We know that women have greater harms from alcohol even at the same level of drinking than men. Part of that may just be a body size issue, but researchers also think there is something different about how the liver is metabolizing that alcohol. And so that’s why in the US, that moderate drinking is different for men and women because the health harms for women actually do start at lower levels of alcohol consumption which is very unfair.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, that’s so fun. I feel like I want a refund or something.
CAIRA: A refund on your body.
DANA: You know there’s a lot that goes into how you metabolize alcohol. Some of it is just kind of body size in general. Also, whether you have food in your stomach, whether you’ve just eaten recently. A lot of things affect how your body is metabolizing alcohol in the moment. But we do know in general that more alcohol and more acetaldehyde in your system is bad for you. That’s why, again, come back to those moderate drinking recommendations, it’s supposed to be average over a week. So you can’t just not drink Monday through Friday and then have all seven or 14 drinks on the weekend and think that you’re still within the moderate limit. Because how much alcohol is in your body at one time really does impact those health harms as well. So it’s really meant to be a daily limit, not like a weekly combined amount that you’re drinking.
ROSIE: All right, Dana, break my heart about red wine. Go on. Go ahead.
DANA: Yeah, I’m sorry. Okay. So to me, it’s a really fascinating research story, like a statistical story. So we used to think that a little bit of alcohol, especially a little bit of red wine, was actually good for you.
ROSIE: We sure did.
CHRISTINE: Took our daily medicine.
DANA: …the glorious ‘90s and early 2000s. That came from research showing that people who drink within those low to moderate levels that we’ve been talking about actually lived longer than people who didn’t drink at all. And so researchers thought that that might be because there was some benefit to this low amount of alcohol, and they looked at red wine specifically because there are antioxidants in red wine, particularly one called resveratrol that researchers got excited about and thought may be beneficial for heart health. The latest research has not backed that up. When researchers look at resveratrol on its own, it doesn’t really seem to provide the benefits that we hoped it did. Also, it comes from grape skin, so if there really was a benefit of resveratrol, you should probably just eat more grapes rather than drinking wine.
But the most interesting finding is that benefit of low to moderate amounts of alcohol, researchers now think was just kind of a statistical artifact. So there are other patterns of behavior that people who drink low to moderate amounts of alcohol also have. They’re more likely to exercise, they’re less likely to smoke, they’re more likely to eat more fruits and vegetables. So now, researchers think that that kind of health benefit effect of alcohol is actually due to those other healthy behaviors that people had. Very sorry to everyone to be kind of the ultimate buzzkill when it comes to red wine.
ROSIE: My pepe, when he was still alive, my grandfather, used to drink the little Parisian bistro glasses of red wine, so he would have three fingers of red wine in the afternoon and then maybe some with dinner. And we created maybe some family lore around that. It was like, okay, well, moderate red wine, it’s like having a multivitamin or something. Now, hearing you speak about these other correlating factors, he also baked bread and he was out all day gardening and walking, and he went to bed at 7 p.m.
CHRISTINE: He was like living a true Mediterranean island life.
DANA: Exactly.
CAIRA: What a classy man.
ROSIE: And just was like living a really, really healthy lifestyle. So I think a lot of that tracks.
CAIRA: I mean, it sounds like you can have your glass of wine every day if you’re also just living a really nice, moderate life in the wild with your berries.
DANA: Well, that’s the thing is that I write these articles, and people get really upset with me in the comments because they’re thinking that I’m saying that you can’t drink at all or that any amount of alcohol is bad for you. And we just really don’t know the threshold at which it turns bad. That doesn’t mean that that three fingers of wine a day is causing serious problems. You can still have a glass of wine with dinner. Just try not to go over that kind of drink a day, and maybe try and take a couple days off a week, but that doesn’t mean you have to abstain completely.
ROSIE: That is a great point, and I think really segues into our next question, which is about reducing some of the risks associated with alcohol. I mean, I imagine what you’ll say is it’s about balance and moderation and looking at some of these other factors in your life, but talk about that.
DANA: What the researchers say is, really, it’s people who drink more than that moderate amount who are really at risk. So if you’re drinking three, four, five drinks a day, if you cut back even one or two drinks, that’s going to have a really big impact on your health. That’s the people who are going to see the most benefit. If you’re within those moderate amounts, your risk might go up a little bit but it’s a tiny amount. It’s really more about trying to help people be informed about their health. You don’t have to stop drinking, you don’t have to go cold turkey. Just try and cut back a little bit if you’re above those moderate levels. And if you’re within that moderate range, that’s fine.
CAIRA: That’s really nice to hear.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, I sometimes go through these purges and I’ll quit completely, and then I’ll really want to have a glass of wine, but I’m like, “It’s so bad for me.” But that kind of gives me permission to be a little looser, I guess.
DANA: Yeah. I mean, I have to confess, even doing all this reporting, I still drink wine. I still enjoy a glass of wine in the evening. Occasionally, I’ll have two when I’m out with friends. I know that that’s not the best thing for my health, but it’s all about making informed decisions about your health. That’s really what my reporting is hopefully doing for people. It doesn’t mean that you have to stop drinking at all. It’s not trying to shame anyone. It’s just trying to help people be a little bit more aware.
CAIRA: Yeah. This episode is really timed for a dry January, which has been a thing for years, and we are going to talk later about non-alcoholic drinks with our colleague Marguerite Preston. But you wrote a piece, Dana, last year about how sales of non-alcoholic beverages are on the rise. So why do you think people are reducing alcohol now? Is it the health risks? Do drinks just suck now? What’s going on?
DANA: Yeah, I think the rise in non-alcoholic beverages is so fascinating. There’s a stat that I found that the sales of any beverages grew by over 30% between 2022 and 2023, and alcohol sales are basically flat during that time. So we’re really seeing a rise in the sale of any beverages. It still makes up a very small portion compared to total alcohol sales, but it definitely is gaining in popularity. When there have been surveys of people who drink any beverages, which there’s not a ton of research on the topic, one of the number one things is people say it is because they’re trying to be more health conscious. A lot of people were drinking more during the pandemic, especially the early days, and there have been a lot of scary articles that have come out recently that alcohol related deaths are really on the rise. And so, one theory is that the popularity of any beverages is kind of in response to that, to people being a little bit more aware of these health harms of alcohol and trying to adjust their behaviors.
They also just taste better than they used to. I think that there’s been a lot of progress in terms of the manufacturing of these drinks themselves, so that certainly doesn’t hurt.
CAIRA: Yeah, I mean, anecdotally, after I had COVID, I had a really strange reaction to alcohol for about a year. Any sip of any alcoholic drink, it made me throw up. Yeah. It was some really weird long COVID reaction that I had for a couple years after I got COVID in 2020.
ROSIE: Oh, wow. That’s one way to quit.
CAIRA: I know.
ROSIE: Sorry.
DANA: I’m very sorry. Yeah. That’s awful.
CHRISTINE: Well, something that I have found even in my own life as I’ve sort of started to explore non-alcoholic beers and different drinks is that I sometimes have a non-alcoholic option, not because I’m necessarily completely cutting alcohol out. Maybe my husband and I will sometimes have a beer in the fridge, and we’ll drink that during the week and then maybe we’ll actually have a real beer on the weekend. It kind of seems like a lot of people are using these NA drinks as sort of a supplement to their regular consumption. Have you found that in your reporting?
DANA: Absolutely. Yeah. That was one stat that actually really stood out to me that it’s estimated about 80% of people who drink any beverages also drink alcohol, so it’s not people who are abstaining completely or really trained to quit alcohol. It’s just people who are kind of moderating their drinking with an NA beverage.
ROSIE: I’m curious about this very well, maybe, a can of worms, but I’m wondering about these non-alcoholic drinks that have CBD or THC. Has your reporting shown that these are a safer alternative to alcohol?
DANA: That is a great question, and it’s something we have debated a lot on the Well Desk about how to tackle that question. As far as I’m aware, there aren’t any head-to-head comparisons looking at the health harms of alcoholic drinks versus drinks that contain THC or CBD. We know that there are health risks from high cannabis use. Those are different from the health risks from high alcohol use, but it’s kind of hard to compare them head to head. It’s a little bit of a Wild West right now in the THC drink world because they’re not really regulated. One thing, just a flag, is that you should really look at the can about how much THC is in the drink. It can vary wildly, whether it’s five milligrams up to 20 milligrams of THC, that’s going to have a very different effect on you.
CAIRA: So, Dana, I want to pivot a little bit because something that I noticed in your article about non-alcoholic drinks is that these aren’t always going to be completely safe for some people who have an alcohol addiction or a so-called alcohol use disorder. Why is that?
DANA: Yeah, I mean, there’s not a ton of research on it right now, but one of the experts I spoke with said that because these beverages are kind of better, quote, unquote, “now,” they’re more similar to standard alcoholic beverages, [so] there is a concern that if someone is abstaining because they have an alcohol use disorder that an NA beverage could be kind of a trigger. If you really had a problem with drinking a lot of beer and then you have an NA beer, it might cause you to crave more beer in your brain because they are very similar. But on the flip side, she also said that they could help people stop drinking. That if you’re really trying to cut back, you can switch to that NA beer and maybe even replace regular beer completely with an NA beer. We just need more research on how they might be either helping or harming people who have an alcohol use disorder.
CHRISTINE: Thank you so much, Dana. This has been super interesting and I feel like I’m winning with this information.
CAIRA: Christine’s right again.
ROSIE: Thanks, Dana.
DANA: Thank you.
ROSIE: Thanks so much.
CAIRA: Okay, we’re going to take a quick break, and then when we’re back, we’re going to talk with Wirecutter’s senior kitchen editor Marguerite Preston about the non-alcoholic [alternatives] we’ve tested at Wirecutter. And we’re going to be doing a cheeky little taste test too, so tune in for that.
CHRISTINE: Oh, I’m excited. Yes.
CAIRA: I’ve never had these before, so I’m nervous, but I’m ready. If you’re curious about trying out the sober life this month, you may want to pick some of these up. We’ll be right back.
CHRISTINE: Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show. This episode we’re focused on dry January. Earlier in the show, we chatted with health reporter Dana Smith from New York Times about the health impacts of alcohol and how cutting back even just a little can reduce the risk of many diseases. Now, we’re going to get into the really fun part. We are going to talk about some non-alcoholic alternatives that might help you cut back this month.
CAIRA: That’s right. I’m excited.
CHRISTINE: Yes.
CAIRA: So we’re going to talk with Marguerite Preston, who is Wirecutter senior kitchen editor who oversees all the kitchen gear and all the food and drink reviews. She’s also a cocktail lover who really does enjoy a good NA cocktail. She’s tested dozens of NA drinks for NA drink review, and she’s edited guides for Wirecutter on NA wines and hop water. So Marguerite’s going to walk us through how to build a great NA bar cart that won’t feel sad.
Welcome to the show, Marguerite.
MARGUERITE: Thank you for having me.
ROSIE: Before we get into this, are you doing dry January?
MARGUERITE: No, I’m not. I think, partly, it’s just not my personality. I can’t do the month-long challenge type of thing, but also, I just don’t really drink that much to begin with. I think ever since being pregnant and not drinking for nine months, I have no tolerance. I’ll have a drink if I go to a restaurant or something, but otherwise, I just don’t. So kind of pointless.
ROSIE: You don’t need to formalize it.
CAIRA: No need to commit for the whole month. We were talking about that earlier.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. It seems like we’re a whole group of non-committal drinkers. Okay, so, Marguerite, you and your team have tried out a lot of non-alcoholic drinks, and we have a guide to non-alcoholic wine to non-alcoholic spirits and to hop water. So if somebody is interested in trying out this new branch of drinks that are available out there that are non-alcoholic, what do you think are some good entry points. If they like drinking wine, should they try a non-alcoholic wine? Is there a different way that you would approach that?
MARGUERITE: I mean, I think it depends, right? You could be disappointed if you try to just go one-to-one with your favorite drink depending on what it is. De-alcoholized wine just doesn’t quite have the same oomph in body as real wine, so you might taste it and be like, “This is a little disappointing.” With the spirit, I think it really depends on the spirits. Most of the most successful non-alcoholic drinks we’ve had, a lot of them are really based on herbs and roots and really complex flavors like that. So spirits that are similar like gin or an Amaro, a spritz that’s made with Aperol or something like that, those tend to be pretty satisfying as non-alcoholic versions. If you’re trying to replicate something like bourbon, you might be disappointed, I think, if you’re just getting into it.
I think if you can find the ones that come in a can and just buy one can to try, that’s a good way to start. If you live in a city, bars and restaurants now do serve some non-alcoholic drinks using either these large format spirits as a base, or they’ll just sell the cans that you can buy. That’s a good way to try something without committing to the whole bottle.
CHRISTINE: That’s interesting. And you mentioned, de-alcoholized wine. That’s also something that is done to beer, right? So it’s like it is made with alcohol, and then they’re taking out the alcohol, right?
MARGUERITE: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: Okay.
MARGUERITE: Do not ask me the science.
CHRISTINE: Okay. It’s magic. They do it by magic.
MARGUERITE: But it happens.
CHRISTINE: And do you personally have a favorite that you kind of turn to?
MARGUERITE: Yeah, I like the kind of ones in the spirits realm. I am the type of person who likes herbaceous. I really love Amaros, so things that are sort of in a similar vein. I like this one that’s not actually a top pick, but it is something that we say is worth considering if you like that Amaro flavor profile, it’s called the Pathfinder. It’s quite bitter, but it also has this kind of like rootbeery, alpine herbs flavor that I really like.
CAIRA: I’ve noticed that they have a lot of, like you said, herbaceous flavors to them, which can be really fun and adventurous, but have you stumbled across them that you feel have just an off-putting flavor, things that you probably should avoid if you’re looking at the label and you don’t really know what it is?
MARGUERITE: I think the one thing that we generally have found we dislike across the board is sugar alternatives. So like monk fruit, stevia, these kind of low-calorie, no-calorie sweeteners, they just can be really cloying. They coat your tongue with this unpleasant taste. We will taste stuff that have them, but we tend to not like them. There’s also a lot of medicinal sort of things like reishi mushrooms and ashwagandha and things that they say are giving you some kind of feeling or something. We can’t really speak to whether that’s true or not. Those can add a flavor that ends up being like, “Oh, this tastes like old-timey medicine or something.”
ROSIE: At the apothecaries.
CAIRA: I don’t like that.
ROSIE: In the guide itself, I was surprised to see how expensive some of these have gotten, the same price as a bottle of real alcohol. Why do you think that is?
MARGUERITE: It’s something that a lot of people comment on and are like, “Oh, my god, they’re so expensive.” Partly, I think that reaction is sort of a cultural programming. We’ve been programmed to think that alcohol should cost a certain amount of money and that things that aren’t alcohol are juice or water, so they shouldn’t. And I think that’s not totally fair for these drinks. I mean, I do think there probably is some element of marketing there where they want you to feel like you’re drinking something special and spending more might make you feel like you’re drinking something special.
But I think, also, a lot of them have a lot of ingredients to make them taste complex and interesting. They’re not just juice. And there’s also the production that goes into mixing them and making them. I think, also, you have to think about the fact that there is an enormous multi-billion dollar production industry behind making alcohol. I don’t think there really is that for non-alcoholic drinks. So I think a lot of these producers are kind of like they have their own special bottles, and they’re figuring out how to blend them and bottle them. And it’s probably on a very small scale, which means it’s going to cost more. So I think, ultimately, the prices are probably pretty fair. It’s just that we’re not used to thinking about non-alcoholic things that way.
CHRISTINE: And the bottles are beautiful.
ROSIE: They’re really pretty. I mean, I think they have to probably be, to say, “Jump off the shelf, pick me, choose me, love me.”
CHRISTINE: Yeah, here’s this pick-me dollar bottle of stuff that’s not going to get you drunk. I do appreciate the packaging, and I’ve experimented a lot with many of the recommendations we have for these large-format non-alcoholic spirits. And last year, my mom came to visit, and I got a few of them. And I was, at first, shocked by the price, but then it kind of felt fine because I didn’t want to just drink seltzer with my mom. Both of us were not drinking at the time, and we wanted to have happy hour. We were on vacation, we wanted to sit back, have some nibbles, drink a drink, feel like we were doing something special, and so pouring from these bottles, it was fun. It was way more fun than it would’ve been if I was like “Do you want some cranberry and soda?” So I’m just wondering how much of this whole NA spirits movement is kind of around the ritual or the culture of it?
MARGUERITE: Yeah, I think a lot of it is. And that was something we were really looking for when we were tasting and making our picks, it was like, we want something that is fun that you could serve at a party or to a guest to make them feel special and make them feel included when they’re at a party and not drinking. Or just for your…I like to drink something when I’m watching TV at night, and I don’t just want to chug an orange juice, I want to slowly sip something. So we were looking for things with flavors that were complex enough that, A, they would light up your brain a little bit and make your brain think and be interested and engaged in the drinking experience, but also that you couldn’t drink too fast. That’s where the bitterness comes in. Also, things like ginger add kind of this warm spiciness that can feel a little bit like that comforting, warming, alcohol feeling. All those things to just make it feel a little more special than just drinking seltzer or juice.
ROSIE: All right. Well, I’m looking at these gorgeous bottles that you brought in. Can we taste-test?
MARGUERITE: Yes, let’s do it.
ROSIE: Let’s party.
CHRISTINE: So, Marguerite, we’re going to taste a couple of things that are official picks in our non-alcoholic spirits guide. That guide doesn’t have any top-top picks. It’s like a collection of things that were widely liked. And I think we’re going to taste one thing that didn’t actually make it into that official pick section. They just didn’t appeal to the wider group.
MARGUERITE: Yeah. It’s actually in what we call our worth considering section. So it was well-liked by the people who liked it and then there are people who really didn’t like it.
CHRISTINE: Right. It’s so subjective.
MARGUERITE: Let’s go maybe in order of lightest to darkest. So the lightest one is Pentire, which is they don’t really market it this way, but it is kind like gin-adjacent, I would say. It’s clear. It’s got this very herbaceous flavor. It’s made in Cornwall, so it has all these sort of coastal sea ingredients that I rock samphire and sea purslane, and I couldn’t tell you what those taste like. To me, you get sage and maybe rosemary and some other herby flavors.
CHRISTINE: I think the bottle is pretty enough that I would bring it to a party. I would feel comfortable going.
ROSIE: It’s beautiful.
CHRISTINE: Yeah.
MARGUERITE: You could try it straight, but I think it’s going to be best if we mix it with some tonics. I’m just going to…
CHRISTINE: And this comes in a full bottle, so you would expect to be mixing it.
MARGUERITE: Yes. They do also sell canned cocktails, so they sell a Pentire and tonic that is kind of a premixed thing. They make one other spirit, which we didn’t like as much.
ROSIE: I love that you brought a garnish too.
CHRISTINE: I know. A garnish.
MARGUERITE: I love a garnish.
ROSIE: Classy establishment.
CHRISTINE: Oh, gosh.
MARGUERITE: I think what we found when we were testing and what I do at home is a lot of these really adding a little squeeze of lemon or something really does a lot.
ROSIE: All right, cheers.
CAIRA: Cheers.
CHRISTINE: Cheers.
MARGUERITE: Cheers.
CAIRA: Okay. I…wow, Rosie’s face just went from delighted to pure disgust.
MARGUERITE: Doesn’t like it. All right.
CHRISTINE: I’m a fan. I like it.
CAIRA: I don’t even know how to describe what this flavor is. It’s kind of like…
CHRISTINE: There’s a medicine that this tastes like, and I can’t put my finger on it.
MARGUERITE: We find ourselves doing a lot of that in the taste test. We’re like, “This tastes like Chloraseptic, like what does this taste like?”
CHRISTINE: It almost tastes briny to me, but I don’t know…
ROSIE: Actually, this is growing on me.
CHRISTINE: I’ve had this one before, actually.
ROSIE: This is growing on me.
CAIRA: I feel like it is the same sort of experience I would have with the gin and tonic.
CHRISTINE: It’s definitely herbaceous to me, so I’m getting herbs. You mentioned sage. I’m almost getting thyme. It is briny. I don’t know. It seems like the right thing to drink on a hot day, to me. Like it’s a hot-weather drink to me.
ROSIE: Can I just say one last thing about this? I really respect what this is doing. I think it is complex. I think that there are a lot of really interesting flavors in it. I really…
MARGUERITE: Yeah, I get it.
ROSIE: I really do get it, and I do think it’s very, very interesting.
MARGUERITE: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: Now you’re pouring the Phony Negroni.
MARGUERITE: Yes, the St. Agrestis Phony Negroni
CHRISTINE: I have only ever seen Phony Negronis in bottles.
ROSIE: Same.
CHRISTINE: And this is a can, which seems very convenient if you’re…
CAIRA: And it is bubbly.
MARGUERITE: Yes. The cans are newer. The cans are very convenient. You don’t need a bottle opener. They’re cute.
CAIRA: I like that. This brand is everywhere now. I see it in just regular grocery stores.
ROSIE: Thank you.
MARGUERITE: Yeah. This is one where I think also a ton of bars and restaurants will have it.
CAIRA: Yeah, it smells like a candy. It smells like Negroni.
MARGUERITE: It’s like Maraschino.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. Maraschino cherries.
MARGUERITE: Mm-hmm.
CAIRA: This one tastes like soda to me with a bitter aftertaste.
CHRISTINE: No, it’s very sweet.
ROSIE: I like how bitter it is.
CAIRA: Like a cherry…
ROSIE: It’s very sweet.
CAIRA: Like a cherry soda with a bitter aftertaste.
ROSIE: Can I get a little lemon in here?
MARGUERITE: Yeah, I like the lemon with it or a huge wedge of orange.
CAIRA: It is surprisingly bitter.
ROSIE: I love it. I think it’s so nice.
CAIRA: It’s impressive because at first, I was like, “Oh, it just tastes like soda,” but then I get hit with that bitter aftertaste. I’m like, “Oh, actually no, I’m not going to chug this.”
MARGUERITE: But this is the thing, you could be drinking this at a party and no one would even bat an eye. They would just think you were drinking an Aperol spritz or a Negroni. Totally.
ROSIE: They’d have no idea it was phony.
CHRISTINE: This is lovely. It’s good.
CAIRA: What do we have next?
MARGUERITE: Okay, and this is the Pathfinder. This is one of my favorites.
ROSIE: When I drink the Pathfinder, I like to make a cocktail. I juice half a lemon over ice, and then I pour the Pathfinder, and then I like Uncle Waithley’s ginger beer.
MARGUERITE: Oh, yeah.
ROSIE: With the scotch bonnet.
MARGUERITE: Oh, so good.
ROSIE: I feel like the bitterness plus the really spiciness that kicks you in the back of the throat, it’s nice. And then the lemon brings it all together and kind of lifts it up.
CAIRA: That sounds nice.
ROSIE: It’s like Chocolate, a little.
CAIRA: Ooh. I like the way it smells.
ROSIE: This is like…
CAIRA: This is nice. It’s almost syrupy.
MARGUERITE: Yeah. Sweet.
ROSIE: This is giving Woods of Maine.
CHRISTINE: Woods of Maine?
CAIRA: She’s like, “It’s calling me home.”
ROSIE: Yeah. It’s calling me home.
MARGUERITE: It’s got that piney, sprucey.
ROSIE: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: I feel like I should be wearing a flannel trying this. Just cozy.
ROSIE: I’ve actually not had this straight and this is so nice.
CAIRA: Yeah. It’s really…I’ve never really had anything like this before. That’s special.
MARGUERITE: And that’s the hope. That’s the goal. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, this is interesting, and I’ve never tasted anything like this. It doesn’t remind me of a Spindrift.”
CHRISTINE: If you were helping someone build a really fun non-alcoholic bar cart, what are some favorites that you would suggest people have on hand?
MARGUERITE: You’re always going to want the basics like seltzer or tonic or ginger beer, if you like ginger beer, one of those as a mixer. And citrus, again, I think often elevates it. Some of the drinks we recommend or are kind of just simpler and lighter than some of these. There are Casamara Amaro sodas, which are very light, just kind of herbaceous seltzers basically, which I really love. They have a really complex flavor, more so than it sounds from seltzer, but those could be a good mixer. There’s also Hella Bitters & Soda. They make just cans that’s like…
ROSIE: I love those.
MARGUERITE: Yeah, they’re so good. They make a few flavors, [and] that also speaks to the fact that you could just have bitters on your bar cart and add those. One of our gift guys, we recommend this brand called Bitter Queens. They make a little four pack of different bitters and fun flavors. One is a smoky lapsang souchong, they call it tobacco bitters, but it doesn’t use tobacco. Also, just the same kind of little add-ons that you would garnish a cocktail with. Like, get some nice Luxardo cherries. You tried the Luxardo cherries in the office.
CHRISTINE: I love those cherries.
ROSIE: I love the Luxardo cherries.
CHRISTINE: It’s a real step up from your classic Maraschino cherry.
MARGUERITE: Yeah.
CAIRA: Oh, Marguerite, before we wrap, we usually ask our guests all one final question, which is what’s the last thing you bought that you’ve really loved?
MARGUERITE: Okay. No judgment, because I will explain that this is better than it sounds.
ROSIE: We listen and we don’t judge.
CAIRA: Don’t judge.
MARGUERITE: For the first time ever as an adult, I bought myself an advent calendar. And it’s an instant coffee advent calendar from Onyx Coffee Roasters.
ROSIE: I’m not judging. I love it. I love it so much. I think it’s so great.
MARGUERITE: Okay. So you and I are kind of in the same stage of life where we have three-ish year old children. I don’t have a drip coffee brew at home. I have a gazillion other ways to make coffee. All of them are too involved for the morning. And instant coffee, all you have to do is pour the water in and the technology has really changed and developed. It’s not Folgers. Every day is a different coffee. It’s like a different roast. They tell you where it’s from. They all taste different. They all taste like coffee. They don’t taste bad. I swear.
ROSIE: I love this for you.
CAIRA: That’s so great.
CHRISTINE: And you’re a coffee person.
MARGUERITE: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: You’re into coffee.
CAIRA: I was not expecting you to say that. That’s really fun, though. Thank you so much for joining us, Marguerite.
ROSIE: Thanks, Marguerite.
CAIRA: Thanks, Marguerite.
ROSIE: This was so fun.
MARGUERITE: Thanks for having me.
CAIRA: This was really fun. I love drinking on the job with you.
CHRISTINE: Anytime.
CAIRA: I’m feeling kind of buzzed, you guys.
CHRISTINE: Just on life, I hope because…
CAIRA: Just the high of being with you.
ROSIE: The high. Yeah.
CAIRA: Of course.
CHRISTINE: What did you all take away from that?
CAIRA: For me, I feel better. I feel like drinking is not such a scary thing. I know that we are seeing things constantly about how bad it is for your health, but I feel like I’m actually drinking within the moderate amount, and I was a little bit surprised. Because honestly, I came in here thinking that I was going to have to change my ways. But I do like this idea that you can have a few drinks a week and you’re going to be fine. And if you want to abstain for a little bit, you do sometimes, Christine, I think that’s totally normal and healthy. But also, you don’t have to be afraid of living your life a little bit and having a glass of wine a couple times.
ROSIE: Well, especially if you’re embracing the idea of moderation.
CAIRA: Yeah.
ROSIE: It’s one factor in an entire kind of story.
CAIRA: Yeah. Balance.
CHRISTINE: It’s like your grandpa, right? Bringing it back to your grandpa. It’s like the…
CAIRA: My takeaway is that I just want to be like your pepe, actually.
ROSIE: He was a great guy.
CAIRA: Just live a good life.
ROSIE: Such a great guy. Me, I feel…I’m thinking back to the non-alcoholic spirits we tasted with Marguerite, thinking about why they’re so expensive. Because I enjoy buying them, but I often hesitate when I’m at the store thinking, “These are expensive. This is a lot of money.” So thinking a little bit deeper about maybe why they’re expensive and the fact that these are real ingredients, some of them rarer than others that go into creating these bitter profiles or whatever flavor profile you’re getting. I have a better understanding of that and so I think I maybe won’t cringe as hard. And that if it’s okay to buy a bottle of bourbon for 50 bucks, then it’s probably okay to buy a bottle of an NA spirit that I really like and I’m going to enjoy at home for the same amount.
CHRISTINE: Yeah.
CAIRA: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: I think talking with Dana reiterated for me that my inclination to be cautious about alcohol is probably the correct path.
ROSIE: Absolutely.
CHRISTINE: Regardless of what your health is, but I was facing a health scare, like a cancer scare and cutting back is probably the way to go. But her overall advice was what my doctor said, which was basically like, “Yeah, you don’t have to cut out alcohol completely, just be moderate.” So even if I do have some actual alcohol this month, I am also going to experiment with some of these other NA drinks. And I really am opened up now to the citrus that Marguerite recommended, so I’ll be trying some squeezes of citrus in my NA drinks.
ROSIE: Absolutely.
CAIRA: Yeah, I really did change things.
CHRISTINE: For sure.
ROSIE: I love it with that garnish.
Well, that’s it for us. You can find more information on all of Wirecutter’s recommended non-alcoholic drinks at nytimes.com/wirecutter. Happy new year.
CAIRA: Happy new year.
CHRISTINE: That’s right. Happy new year.
CAIRA: Here’s what’s coming up next week on The Wirecutter Show.
Make sure you’re following the show on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss it. The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. Editing by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddy Masiello and Nick Pitman. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, and Diane Wong. Wirecutter’s deputy publisher and interim general manager is Cliff Levy. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief.
I’m Caira Blackwell.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin.
CAIRA: Thanks for listening.
ROSIE: This is like I came upon a bottle in the woods and I was like, “Let me try this.”
CAIRA: Don’t do it.
CHRISTINE: Well, you should never drink a random bottle you find in the woods, first of all.
CAIRA: Is that right?
