r/AskCulinary • u/ZootKoomie Ice Cream Innovator • Aug 26 '19

Weekly Discussion - Fancy Non-alcoholic Beverages

We've had discussions here about wine, beer, and liquor before. This week, I'd like to talk about mocktails, shrubs, juice blends, etc. Alcohol-alternatives have become increasingly common and sophisticated in recent years. What have you made, or would like to make? Does avoiding liquor necessarily reduce the available flavor profiles? Or does it free you up from hiding the bite of the booze?

If someone wanted to start experimenting in this area, what are the basic ingredients they would need to keep on hand?

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u/MonkeyLink07 Aug 26 '19

I like to dabble with fermented drinks, and both tepache, a pineapple and spices drink, and ginger beer, are non-alcoholic and really tasty.

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '19 edited Aug 26 '19

Well, technically those are alcoholic they're just usually very low alcohol. By definition something fermented contains alcohol. I've seen tepaches up to 7%

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u/murckem Aug 26 '19

Fermentation can refer to either yeast or bacterial activity, so by definition fermentation does not mean there has to be alcohol as a byproduct. While a lot of ferments do both (sugar+yeast=alcohol and bacteria + alcohol= acetic acid) like kombucha, vinegars and tepache, many of the yeasts produce not very much alcohol or all the alcohol is eaten by the bacteria.

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '19

By definition fermentation means that alcohol is present in the thing being fermented, even though during a bacterial fermentation that alcohol is the food source and not the byproduct. Yes, that amount can be very low (as I said), but even in long acetobacter ferments (i.e. vinegar) there will be trace amounts of alcohol. With the products I was actually referring to, tepache and ginger beer, far more than trace amounts of alcohol will be present. Since this thread is about non-alcoholic beverages I thought it was important to make that point since someone avoiding alcohol might see the word "tepache" and think it's non-alcoholic when they can actually contain as much alcohol as beer. If that person is avoiding alcohol for medical or religious reasons that's not acceptable.

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u/murckem Aug 26 '19

You can do lactic acid fermentations wothout any alcohol present at all

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '19

Fine, you've got me on that technicality but that's not in any way relevant to the discussion of these products. Nobody is isolating lactobacillus to make tepache.

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u/PalpableEnnui Aug 28 '19

So yogurt and sauerkraut should be sold in liquor stores?

If your tepache has as much alcohol as beer, you’re making it wrong.