EP. 19: Summer Beverages
Is there anything better than the refreshing sound of that 'click' of a tab on a hot summer day? Today, I'm sharing my taste test and my opinion on several non-alcoholic beverages on the market. I get many of them from Thrive and some you can find at your everyday grocery store. Honestly, by this point in my pregnancy, I am starting to crave my favorite bubbly, summer drink. I truly think I've found at least one alternative I'm going to keep stocked in my refrigerator regardless of being pregnant - it was that good! Of course, there are always good-better-best options and I'm happy to share a few I've found. Let me know if you've tried any of these and if you agree with my assessments. I'd love to know your opinion.
Show Notes
1
0:00:00
Alright, so today we are going to be tasting non-alcoholic wines and beers and mocktails, which I love. So being pregnant, I've never had wine. I know in Europe a lot of the recommendations are to have a couple of ounces of wine. It won't hurt your pregnancy, especially in the third trimester. It's just a way of life over there. I've chosen not to have any alcohol during my pregnancies, even a taste.
1
0:00:53
So having this be my first summer baby, because I'm due in a couple of weeks, I'm definitely missing some refreshing alternatives. Normally, I'm a wine drinker. Again, I like European wines. Rieslings are my go-to. And in lieu of those, we're going to be testing some good alternatives out there.
1
0:01:15
Now I will preface, there are some great, uh, what they call adaptogenic drinks. I'm not going to be tasting those just because I'm pregnant. And some of those herbs are contraindicated with pregnancy, but there's some really great ones out there. Uh, and there's some great non-alcoholic liquor alternatives.
1
0:01:34
I know seed lip is one that's really popular. They have like a seedless vodka They have a gin that you can make Margaritas and Palomas and different cocktails, so I will be testing those out at some point just not for today's purposes So let's get started So I'm going to start with this one first because it's a bubbly rosé and again. I love wine this company is called groovy and they their premise is to put the
1
0:02:07
happy back in happy hour and I like this because with this one and with the Shirley they are actually wine. It's real wine it's not just grape juice and that's kind of been one of my complaints with pregnancy is I just don't want to drink grape juice. I can do that at any time. But this is made where there's a process where it just takes the alcohol out.
1
0:02:35
It's still fermented, 60 calories. Their ingredients include spring water, chardonnay, grape juice concentrate, a little bit of tannic acid and carbon dioxide. And it's a great alternative to, again, just having tonic water or lemon water, and it tastes
3
0:02:55
just like a rosé.
1
0:02:59
If you give me a charcuterie board, I'd be happy as a clam right now. So that's really, really good. It doesn't just taste like grape juice. There's some carbonation. There's some depth to the flavor. So that's a really good alternative.
1
0:03:14
Now, Shirley, their company is made in California. This is a bubbly red. And again, I usually like whites in the summer. So their premise is drink wine, skip the hangover, which I think is really cute. And what I love about both of these is, again,
1
0:03:32
it's real wine, it's not just grape juice. This company has been featured on Food Network and promoted in Town and Country. And it has less than half percent alcohol. So the main ingredient is de-alcoholized red wine blend, water, cherry, grape concentrate, and flavored carbon dioxide. It does have sulfites and neither of these are organic, but again, they're a good alternative with that good, better, and best spectrum. So let's try this one out. And it's cute on the logo it says, Made
1
0:04:13
for Happier Hours. Very fun. So this one's pretty darn good. To me, this tastes more like wine, this tastes a little bit more like juice, but again, it
4
0:04:31
has juice in it.
1
0:04:32
So I think that's the difference. This, if I was at a cocktail party or a wedding or something, that would be my go-to. This one's just a teeny bit bigger. But the groovy is my go-to for now. Now Recess. Recess is neat because they market themselves as craft cocktails. Now this one has magnesium in it, which I think is pretty cool. This one is called Tropical Bliss and it's called Mood. And their premise for this is calm, cool, collected.
1
0:05:15
Ingredient-wise, filtered water, and then tropical tea infusion. So they use apple, hibiscus, mango, pear juice concentrate, magnesium, which the form of magnesium is really good. It's a magnesium L3 and 8. There's B6 in there, so that's a plus. passion fruit pineapple juice, mandarin juice, tangerine juice, banana juice, and some sea salt and lemon balm. And the adaptogen that they have in here is
1
0:05:51
theanine. So theanine is great for again mood, it's a calming adaptogen. That one is safe during pregnancy, it's not really an herb, so that's why we're trying this. So let's try this one out. You know, any cocktail is going to have juice in it. A lot of them do, at least the ones that I like do. So I'm not really surprised that it has juice. Calorie content is pretty darn good. There's 20 calories in this whole can. So again, if you're not only wanting to avoid alcohol, but you're trying to watch your sugar intake and your caloric
1
0:06:23
This is a great option and this is a 12 ounce can. That is delicious. So this I feel like would be perfect to go on the beach. It's called Tropical Bliss for good reason. It's very good. It kind of tastes like a fruity Mai Tai that's chilled.
1
0:06:47
So that's really good. It does not feel like I'm drinking juice and that's the key. Now this one by Recess for Mood is a strawberry rosé. It also has magnesium in it and ingredients, this one's a little bit different, it has a tea infusion but it's strawberries. So it has dried strawberries, dried rose
1
0:07:11
petals, pear juice, magnesium blend again, it has that L-theanine. It's a sweetener, it has monk fruits, still only 20 calories. So not bad at all for a craft cocktail.
3
0:07:28
Let's see how this one is.
2
0:07:36
Pretty darn good. It kind of tastes like a strawberry daiquiri, but fizzy.
1
0:07:37
Both really good. So I think these would be really great for the beach. This would be great for get-togethers, weddings. This is not my favorite. This is my favorite, and then these two, if I had to choose. Now, this one is a sparkling rosé, and that is a bubbly red. So they make a couple of different ones. This is an interesting
1
0:08:06
one. So I got these from Thrive. Thrive has some great non-alcoholic options. They also have really big bottles of this if you're looking for bigger portions. So this one is called a Functional Seltzer, and Hyo is a really cool company. They are a non-alcoholic social tonic, and again you're kind of seeing more of a shift towards the adaptogenic blend. This one is a peach mango.
1
0:08:32
And the other interesting thing, and I've seen this a lot with sports drinks or energy drinks, there's something called nootropics, which are modulators for brain, for calmness or energy. So this one has adaptogens, functional botanicals, and nootropics. And what I like about a lot of these
1
0:08:55
nootropics and adaptogens is you're not just drinking sugar, and again not that there's a lot of sugar in it, you're drinking basically an herb blend, something more functional, so it's doing something for you. Again, these have magnesium and thiamine in there, so at least it's nourishing you, it's not depleting you like alcohol would be. This one has 6% juice, not bad, 30 calories, main ingredient mango puree, it has urethra tallis as a sweetener, peach juice, orange juice, ashwagandha, which is an adaptogen,
1
0:09:33
cordyceps, ginger, turmeric, and lion's mane. Turmeric and Lion's Mane. So Lion's Mane is a really cool mushroom. We you know had that whole podcast on psychedelics and the benefits of mushrooms So this is something that is really worth trying. I'm not going to try it because I'm pregnant And I don't want to do any ashwagandha or Lion's Mane
1
0:09:57
Even though I'm almost close to having this little guy, but this is going to stay in my fridge and it'll be there for when he comes. But that's a really cool company to check out. And then with these, I've seen a lot of commercials with these, Athletic Brewing Company, great alternatives to beer, right? I always laugh because my dad, when we would go out to eat, he'd usually get a margarita if we were going for Mexican,
1
0:10:23
but then he kind of got on this kick for O'Doul's and that was before non-alcoholic was a thing and I would tease him, I'm like, just get a beer! But he'd like the taste of O'Doul's. So the fact that non-alcoholic beer is a thing now just makes me laugh. He would be smiling down right now. So with athletic brewing, less than half percent alcohol, calorie wise, 65 calories, so a little bit more than these, not a whole lot, still better than a beer. Ingredients, water, malted barley, oats, hops, wheat, and yeast.
1
0:11:00
And the only challenge with these, with any of these, is they're not organic, right? But, there's still good options on alternatives. So because these have gluten, I'm not going to test them, but there's a IPA which is really cool, there's a hazy IPA, and then a golden upside down which is pretty fun. So this one only has 45 calories, this one has 70, and again just great alternatives, and I've heard really good things from friends about those. So again, functional, kind of a little bit more, I don't want to say medical, but functional intervention
1
0:11:44
for your body would be something like the HI-O. These are our second best because they have theanine and magnesium. These are just fun because they're non-alcohol wine alternatives and these are fun too. So there's some options for you this summer. If you try them and you want to give me some feedback let me know I'd love to hear what you guys think of them and just kind of give you that good better best what you guys think of them and just kind of give you that good better best
1
0:12:06
option for summer.
Transcribed with Cockatoo