Mocktail Maths
fun drink vs bank account and the fun drink always wins
Many reports over recent years have highlighted the changing drinking habits of younger generations, and the overall societal shift away from booze as the default. I think the situation has been overblown, but it’s true that pubs are no longer the default place to spend time with one another; people (‘the youth’) are more interested in activity-driven socialising, where alcohol is a secondary rather than primary focus – if it’s there at all.
In parallel with the UK weather, my January was not dry. I could attribute this to the slew of birthdays and celebrations that occurred during the month, although to be more realistic it’s more down to the fact that 1) going out for drink/s with friends is fun and 2) January is a bit of a grim month so you have to take those glimmers of fun where you can. But I digress. Enjoying a Hugo spritz* or five of a Friday night doesn’t mean that I don’t also indulge in the occasional mocktail, and have done for many years.
Last year I had an absolutely delightful mocktail at Club Soda in Covent Garden**, an alcohol-free drinks shop that I dismissed as a pretentious rip-off when it replaced an old-fashioned sandwich bar many years ago. The exact name of the drink eludes me, but as a general reference a mocktail here will set you back around £11.
It was a really good drink, I have to say. The nonalcoholic mulled wine I tried at Christmas was also delightful, better than some of the standard offerings I gulp down over the festive season. Nevertheless, there’s something definitively upsetting about paying more than £10 for a drink without any alcohol in it. Surely the booze is the pricey part of the drink, and the rest is, if you’ll excuse the unpleasant mental image, just gravy?
Of course, drinks are always marked up at restaurants, the cost of a Coke eye-wateringly high. This is a given. But at least you know what you’re buying. If a pub charges me more than a fiver for a soft drink, albeit one with an umbrella in it, I’m not going to be happy.
Sure, the credentials of a mocktail have changed a little over the years. With the boom in sobriety, many of the trendier mocktail establishments have ingredients that toe the nootropic line or are made of something organic and healthy-sounding – they’re not just three fruit juices poured into a tall glass. Even so, the disparity in price points is ridiculous.
Call it cheapness, call it journalistic curiosity, but I want to know just how much I’m being ripped off. Maths time.
Let’s take, for example, a popular small restaurant chain that will remain nameless. I’ve been here, the drinks are nice, my favourite time to go is when I am not the one paying***. Let’s compare two similar drinks: the Chef’s Margarita (alcoholic, £12) and the Spicy Marg (nonalcoholic, £9).
For the alcoholic offering, Cabrito Tequila Blanco comes out at around 55p/cl, while Del Maguey mezcal is a slightly pricier 71p/cl. Add those and divide by two, that makes each active cl of the drink 63p.
For the 0.0% option, botanical spirit Pentire Adrift is just 4p/cl.
63p is 15.75 times 4p. Hence – in a deeply simplified way – should the mocktail not be 15.75 times cheaper than the cocktail?
Obviously, this is not by any means an accurate measurement. But it does fuel my outrage a little.
NB: I haven’t factored the non-’active’ ingredients (salt, lime) into calculations here as similar items are used for both drinks, and if I was trying to work out the cost of a squeeze of lime I may actually lose it. This is a rough enough calculation as it is.
This is one of many instances where the thing you’re ‘supposed’ to do ends up being an added expense. Train travel, especially in the UK and via Eurostar – ridiculously expensive, leaving many to opt instead for more carbon-heavy transportation options. Health foods (many of which are scams anyway, but that’s for another time) – expensive. Whether it’s for your own wellbeing, that of those around you, or that of the planet, the cost of do-gooding is often more monetary than it should be.
All that being said, I don’t intend to change my spending habits. I know that I will, in the near future, be ordering an overpriced cocktail and/or mocktail. I’ll still sit down and enjoy my stupid little drink, with all its accoutrements, silently stewing about the price – while checking the menu for what I’ll order next.
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* gotta say, I was ahead of the curve on this one. Call me a trend forecaster because I’ve been a fan of these for ages, anything elderflower has my heart. That said, it is a painfully posh-sounding drink to order. We do what we must. Snatching at glimmers of fun etc etc.
** it’s currently in the process of moving elsewhere, likely displacing another sandwicherie or the like.
*** applicable to most situations, really.