People who regularly drink alcohol have at-home bar carts and cabinets so why shouldn’t mocktail drinkers have one too? If you’re sober curious or deciding to cut down on alcohol and drink mocktails instead (or just love making fun drinks everyone can enjoy), there are a few things to keep stocked in your non-alcoholic pantry.

A bottle of Simply Lemonade is surrounded by a lemon, a lime, a bowl of blackberries, and a bowl of sugar. All items are placed on a gray surface with a white tiled background.

Juices and sodas

Most mocktails (at least on this website) use juices to mimic the flavors you’d find in the cocktail counterparts, so if you want to be able to whip up any drink at any time, here are the staples we use in many drinks.

Note: unless you’re drinking the same mocktail every day or having a party, a large carton of juice will go bad before you can drink it all. Our tip is to buy the smaller size single-serve packages (usually a 6-count) so that it lasts longer.

  • Cranberry Juice
  • Pineapple Juice
  • Lemon Juice
  • Lime Juice
  • Ginger Beer (non-alcoholic; found in the juice, soda, or specialty water aisle) – they even sell diet ginger beer
  • Ginger Ale
  • Lemon Lime Soda
  • Club Soda or Sparkling Water (flavored, if you want)
A bottle of Dr Pepper, a bottle of Torani Sugar Free Vanilla Syrup, and a glass with a dark beverage are arranged on a gray countertop with a white tile background.

Syrups and Flavors

In addition to juices, we often use syrups to sweeten or flavor drinks to be more like their cocktail counterparts.

  • Grenadine
  • Simple Syrup (plain for multiple drinks, or flavored)
  • Coffee Syrups are great subs for flavored mixers. Popular brands are Torani, Jordan’s Skinny Mixes (zero sugar) and DaVinci Gourmet. Torani is sold online but it’s best to buy it at stores like Smart & Final, World Market, Bevmo, and Total Wine (on Amazon you have to buy in bulk). The other two are mostly online or on Amazon. (TIP: Check stores like TJMaxx, Homegoods, and Ross; they often have them on discount.)We use all different flavors, from vanilla to apple to blue curaçao in our drinks.

If you’re missing that bitterness from the alcohol you can add a splash or few drops of the following to any drink:

  • Tonic
  • Apple Cider Vinegar
  • Non-alcoholic bitters (be careful – most have alcohol so be sure to double check)
A hand pours orange juice from a small metal measuring cup into a transparent tumbler filled with ice. The tumbler has colorful decorations. Slices of orange and a glass of juice are visible in the background.

Tools & Glasses

Many mocktails, just like cocktails, use fresh juices, herbs, and fruit. (After all, you wouldn’t be here if you just wanted to drink club soda.) So you might already have many of these items, but I find that drinking even cranberry and club soda out of a special glass with a slice of lime as a garnish tastes better than just out of a regular drinking glass.

Tools:

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Glasses:

Zero Proof Ingredients

So many companies make zero proof alcohol nowadays – from non-alcoholic beer to zero proof spirits to non-alcoholic wine. If you want to swap those for your favorite alcohol in any recipe, go for it. That said, on this site, I try to only use juices and other ingredients (not zero proof) to make our drinks. To us it can be a slippery slope and doesn’t get us in the habit of not drinking, it just continues the patterns. But there is no judgment – you do you!

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