Mocktails. Even the name sounds dodgy. Who is this apparently innocuous canned drink mocking, pray? Probably you, if you’ve shelled out close to four quid for a can of artfully tinted water.
Like much today, mocktails in tins make me want to cross my arms and make a ‘humph’ noise. When I was a girl, you drank alcohol from the age of 14 or – if you were on primitive antibiotics for VD, this being the sexed-up 1970s – you drank plain tonic with a twist, hoping that no one would spot the absence of gin and mock you as a milquetoast. In the 1980s, my American father-in-law introduced me to a cocktail without alcohol, the Shirley Temple. The contempt in the name was clear: composed of ginger beer, lime juice and grenadine, with a cherry on top, this was a drink for small children. If you supped one while your compadres were chucking down martinis, you would be going home alone.
Men and women rubbed along nicely, because they so often got drunk in the pub and fell into bed with each other
These days, non-alcoholic tipples have grown-up, sociable names: ‘Mingle’ (a brand which recently added Subtly Spicy Margarita and Juicy Watermelon Spritz to its ‘functional beverage’ line, boasting such ingredients as lion’s mane, L-theanine and ashwagandha) makes me laugh. If there’s one thing guaranteed not to make young people want to mingle – a generation already atomised and experiencing a loneliness blight – it’ll be a non-alcoholic cocktail.
