Ep. 85 - The Joy of an Alcohol-Free Holiday: Less Stress, More Presence & Better Memories with Sarah Kate

Ep. 85: The Joy of an Alcohol-Free Holiday: Less Stress, More Presence & Better Memories with Sarah Kate

Meet Sarah Kate of Some Good Clean Fun

Lindsay: Hi Sarah. I have already introduced you to our audience here today, but welcome to the Feel Good Alcohol Free podcast. I would still love to have you give us a quick introduction of who you are and what you do.

Sarah: Lindsay, thank you so much for having me today. I'm just really excited about today, because I know that I can provide a ton of value for your community. I have so much to share about my thoughts on non-alcoholic drinks. And just to get into this, when I got sober in 2020, I literally could not wrap my head around the idea of drinking sparkling water for the rest of my life. That was the thing that was really sticking with me.

And so I did Annie Grace's program, long before she had her fancy programs and stuff. She had this thing called a 30-day alcohol-free challenge, and it was an old-school portal. You logged in to a web interface and typed in your daily journaling. I did that in 2020, and then I spent about eight months being mindful. I called that rethinking drinking, actually. So I spent about eight months rethinking drinking and really working towards the goal of, I don't want to be a drinker anymore. I just didn't want to be. I knew it wasn't aligned with my future.

It started by reading Annie Grace's book before I did the program, and that just blew my mind. Once the curtain was removed from my eyes about where alcohol is in the world, not about what it's doing to me, but where it is in the world, that was like, oh God, I've been influenced. I've been sucked in. I'm just like a lamb to slaughter. And I was like, I'm not a follower. No way. This is not me. I'm a rebel. Forget it.

So in that eight-month period, I was having a little bit of wine here and there. And two things happened. One, I'm like, I can't drink sparkling water for the rest of my life. This is gonna be really difficult. This was my Roman Empire. There has to be a solution to this. And I also realized that if I was gonna drink something non-alcoholic, at the time there wasn't a lot of choice. In 2020, there wasn't. The market has exploded and grown so fast since.

But I was in my kitchen making shrubs, because shrubs have a zing to them, a sour, acidic taste. And you can do shrubs with hot peppers, jalapeños. So I was trying to recreate, not the flavor, sorry, the alcohol burn through all these things in my kitchen. And I realized that's too hard, and women just want to open a glass of wine. That's what we want.

And that's sort of how Some Good Clean Fun came about. I wanted to start writing about this amazing feeling of being alcohol-free and being able to enjoy the lushness of life. That was really important to me. All of a sudden, the rich fabric of life was filling me up with so much joy. For the first time in my life I felt like, wow, I'm truly experiencing the joy of life. And I was discovering all these non-alcoholic drinks, and the market was slowly starting to grow. So that's how I got into all of this.

From Aspiring Sommelier to Non-Alcoholic Wine Reviewer

Sarah: And I had studied wine for years on my own. I had taken courses. I was trying to get my WSET Level 1. And I always joked that wine got in the way of me doing more with wine, because I was drinking too much. My life was falling apart, as so many people's lives fall apart. And it took getting out of that to see, wow, being a sommelier was not the right path for me. I could have been a sommelier. I just drank too much wine to actually pursue it professionally.

Lindsay: I mean, totally relatable. I'd like to say that wine got in the way of a lot of things for me.

Sarah: A lot of things in our lives. And I'm not a wine snob necessarily, but what happened way back was that I was like, I don't want to go to a dinner party and not understand whether I'm drinking a Merlot and if it's good or not, or a Cab Sauv. I didn't know what to buy at the wine store. And there are so many layers to wine, because it's an agricultural product. It's so different than spirits and beer, because those two things can be made in a tank in a plant. Wine is an agricultural product. It depends on the sun, the moon, the wind, the stars, the earth, the water, the rain, Mother Nature. And that's what I loved about it originally, that every region of the world was so different. And I'm so thankful that I was able to translate that into what I'm doing now in the alcohol-free space.

Why Old Non-Alcoholic Wine Tasted Like Grape Juice

Lindsay: Yeah. And also, in general, when people think about non-alcoholic wine, I think they think of grape juice, or garbage, honestly. And to your point about there not being a lot of options when we quit drinking, my last drink was also in 2020. So there was nothing available. And so now, coupled with having a more joy-filled life, your interest in wine really brought you to the non-alcoholic space, it seems like, and to finding the good stuff.

Sarah: Yeah, to find the good stuff. The biggest issue for me was that everything tasted like grape juice. And people's idea of this is actually very accurate, because the old-style non-alcoholic wine was made with vacuum distillation at higher temperatures. Not to get into the nerdy science about dealcoholizing wine, but there was only one way, and that was to put the wine in a vat and heat it so that the alcohol boils off. And you're left with a very sour mixture afterwards.

And then they would put sugar and rectified grape must, which is just unfermented grape juice, back into the liquid to bring it back up to volume. Because if you have one liter and you cook it, it loses volume. So they'd add that, and the added sugar gives taste, flavor, mouthfeel. And then they'd bottle it and put it on the shelf. I'm not saying there wasn't thought put into it, but it definitely was pretty gross.

St. Regis is a brand of non-alcoholic wine. There's lots of other ones, but it's a grocery store brand. And I saw an ad from St. Regis wines from, I think, the 1980s, and they hadn't changed their formula since the 1980s. They were one of the first to do non-alcoholic wine. Edenvale's a brand from Australia, same thing. They've been around since the '80s, and they had never changed their formula.

So you're gonna walk into a Wegmans or a Tesco or a Publix, and there's non-alcoholic wine there, and almost every single bottle in there is still a mass-produced option, full of sugar, that doesn't taste good. So somebody decides to stop drinking, they go to their grocery store, they walk the aisle, and they're desperate for the taste of wine. They just want their Cab Sauv or their Pinot Noir. I was a Chardonnay girly. All year round, even in cold weather, I would always drink Chardonnay. For somebody who cared about wine so much, it's so funny that Chardonnay was my thing.

But anyway, you're just desperate for that taste. And then they take that bottle off the grocery store shelf, and it tastes like grape juice. And then they're like, that's it. I'm never trying non-alcoholic wine again. I don't trust the category. So there's a broken trust between the consumer and the non-alcoholic wine industry, because that was what was out there for so long.

How Non-Alcoholic Wine Is Made Today (and Why It Costs More)

Sarah: And unfortunately, it's such a new category. Not new in the sense that it hasn't been around for a long time, but the innovation has only happened in the last four or five years. It's only been about four or five years since we really started pushing the envelope on getting a winemaker involved and really focusing on the quality and the science. I could share so much about what's going on right now in the industry, it's crazy. But I want people to give it a second chance and a third chance. And I want them to go to somegoodcleanfun.com and read my reviews so they can find what's good.

Lindsay: Yeah, absolutely. And this is also a process, to your point about involving a winemaker, and it's expensive. I often hear, oh my gosh, why is a non-alcoholic bottle of wine even more expensive than what I used to drink? And it's like, to dealcoholize wine so that you have a good product is expensive. It requires extra equipment. And I had read that this process was invented in Germany in 1907, and California vineyards would ship their wine to Germany to have it dealcoholized and then sent back. How much would that cost? That is mind-boggling.

Sarah: Yeah. You might be familiar with the name Carl Jung. That was the original winery that invented the whole vacuum distillation process. And so yeah, California used to send wine there. I think at the beginning, even Sutter Home, which is the parent company of Fre non-alcoholic wines, used to send it to Germany way back. They don't do that anymore. They have their own plant.

But the Germans have always been ahead of the curve. Their non-alcoholic beers are world-class. They've had world-class non-alcoholic beers for decades, and nobody knew about it. It's wild. And it's because they had nailed the process of dealcoholization. And once again, they're at the forefront, especially with wine. What Americans do really well is spirits. If you're into cocktails, there are a lot of really great zero-proof spirits made in the US. That's where I think American companies really shine. There's a lot of good wineries too, which I'll get to, but I think the best non-alcoholic spirits in the world are made in the US. And the wines are getting there too.

How Non-Alcoholic Drinks Help You Stay Present

Lindsay: Yeah. And I feel like the whole end game here is that you don't have to sacrifice having an experience that is elevated, and having the tastes that you know and love, without actually drinking alcohol.

Sarah: Yeah. And that's where the actual disconnect needs to happen mentally. For me, that was the key. It won't be like this for everyone. I know that some people, when they're going through the process of quitting drinking, can't be around non-alcoholic drinks because it's too much of a trigger. So I just want to say I'm empathizing with that, for sure. This isn't gonna be for everyone. I was really lucky that it wasn't a trigger for me, but I know it's a big thing.

For me, the thing was decoupling life, being present and joy, from alcohol. And I'm not gonna lie, I think everybody listening in your community understands that it's really hard. It's really hard to break that connection and to be present without the addiction in your brain, because your brain wants a reward. The substance has trained your brain to desire that reward from a specific stimulus. So uncoupling that is really, really, really difficult.

But the thing that eases that is when you do have something in a wine glass, or a mocktail in a proper cocktail glass with the garnish, with the ice. It may not taste exactly the same, but it helps to ease the transition from, I suck, this sucks, I have to stand here talking to people without something in my hand, or with sparkling water. Nobody's craving sparkling water at the beginning.

Lindsay: Nobody.

Sarah: I do now. It's funny. I used to say, I can't imagine drinking sparkling water my whole life. And now it's been so long that I actually love a good cold glass of sparkling water. Often there's nothing for me to drink, and I'm like, great, I'll have sparkling water. Not a big deal.

Lindsay: Yeah. I feel like when you're able to really keep this ritual piece and have something that still tastes good, there's a level of confidence that comes from that. I used to have a client who said that at first it would be difficult and feel awkward, but then it would just scratch the itch. The non-alcoholic beer or the mocktail would scratch the itch. And then after a few sips, you're just like, this is what I'm drinking now. The association just starts to go away.

Sarah: Yes, because you also get busy. You're not drinking something that is messing with your executive function, your feelings, your emotions. You have your non-alcoholic thing in a glass, and you're talking to somebody, and you're 100% present in that conversation, experiencing the multicolor fabric of life in that interaction. This is what I keep talking about, the lushness of life. It's not that it's gone when you're drinking, but all of a sudden everything is like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

I've had moments where I had talked to somebody 20 or 30 times at different events and never really took in what they were talking about. And then all of a sudden I meet them again when I'm not drinking. I'm holding a glass of non-alcoholic something or other, and I'm present in the conversation. I'm finding out stuff about this person, who I've met dozens of times before, that I never heard. It went in one ear and out the other, because all I was thinking about was myself and my drink. You're not 100% present.

Lindsay: Yeah. Alcohol just has us totally preoccupied. You're thinking about your next drink. Where's the bartender? How much longer is the open bar? I wonder if they have this? Did I bring enough? How much wine is left in the kitchen? You're thinking about exactly what you said.

Staying Alcohol-Free at a Wedding

Sarah: Yeah. And if you have your non-alcoholic thing, you get chatting, and half an hour goes by, and you've taken two or three sips. I went to a wedding, and there wasn't really anything for me to drink there. They had a few little mocktails at the cocktail hour. But during dinner, everybody was drinking at the table. There was a glass of champagne sitting right in front of me, because everybody got a glass of champagne.

And it feels really good, actually. Sorry, I'm just patting myself on the back. How amazing it feels to just sit there with that glass of champagne in front of me and not even care. I didn't care that it was there. I did think about taking a couple of drops and putting it in my water, just so I had the taste of it, because you can do that. A tablespoon or two of wine in a glass of water with ice, just to get the wine taste, is under 0.5% alcohol. It's a hack. But I didn't do that, because I didn't want people to see me spooning champagne into a cup.

But they had really nice bubbly mineral water there, in a glass bottle, from Italy. And I'm like, okay, I'm enjoying this. There was lime on the table, and I was like, I am enjoying this for sure. And I was talking to my husband's coworkers, and we were all laughing, and the night went by. It was so much fun to be there and talk to these people my husband works with. Having something to drink that's non-alcoholic scratches the itch, back to your original point, and allows you to really be present.

Why Alcohol Feels Tied to the Holidays

Lindsay: Yeah. So this wedding example is a really good segue into what's coming up in our real lives right now, which is the holidays. Why do you think alcohol feels so connected to making something like the holidays or a wedding feel celebratory or special?

Holiday Stress, Q4 Pressure and the Myth That Wine Helps You Relax

Sarah: For women specifically, for the holidays in particular, there are two parts to it. One is, we're so stressed. There's this real pressure on women around the holidays, whether you have kids or not, to do the things, to get to the parties, to entertain, to see your family, to drive six hours to Rochester. And to be with people you may not want to be around, or coworkers that you don't really want to hang out with. And you're trying to help yourself relax, because there's the narrative that wine helps you relax.

Lindsay: Well, and not to mention it's the fourth quarter of the year, and I know many of the women listening to this podcast have very demanding jobs. So the end of the year often comes with a lot of demands in the workplace too.

Sarah: Absolutely. Q4 is super hard for executives, because on the one hand, you're trying to hit your numbers for year-end, and you're also being invited to 17 family functions. You're being bombarded with ads everywhere you go that emphasize how much you need to buy, how much you haven't done, how much you need to prepare. List after list on the personal side. It's a holy trinity of a hot mess for a lot of people.

And so you finally get to the party. You're in nice party clothes, your kids are dressed nicely, you've made the potluck thing you're bringing. Now it's time to relax. So obviously you want to have that glass of wine, because it immediately relaxes you.

What I have gone back to so many times is the idea that in that moment, it's about playing the tape forward and remembering how, am I allowed to swear? Remembering how shit you're gonna feel the next morning. Because you've broken a promise to yourself, you've drunk too much, you're dehydrated, you've probably stayed up later than you wanted to, maybe behaved in a way you didn't want to. And it turns into a downward spiral. You'll feel like shit. And then, okay, I have to go somewhere tonight. I have to get to work. I have to hit my numbers. It's a never-ending cycle.

We've also been trained to believe that alcohol creates the joy in the situation. And what I think is that it doesn't. It's actually removed our ability to truly connect with people and feel joy, because it anesthetizes. Physically, it makes your tongue numb, but it also anesthetizes your brain. Your dopamine spikes and then drops, and then spikes again and drops, as you're drinking. And it's preventing you from actually connecting with other people. You're trying to experience joy internally, instead of getting joy from other people, from the holidays, from being together, if that makes sense. We've lost the ability to connect with each other because we're trying to find joy from something we're putting inside us.

Lindsay: Yeah, that is the perfect way to put it. When you're trying to find joy from something that is literally a depressant, it's not there. That's not the outcome. But for whatever reason, because of media and society, we are conditioned to believe that alcohol equals celebration and joy, and it just doesn't.

Sarah: Yeah. And Annie Grace really explains that well in her book, with the belief system we see in front of us as children, and the ideas that get embedded. Even amongst the smartest women that I know, there's this embedded belief that there's no way to get through events at the holidays without having alcohol. Because they've seen it and heard it and read about it and watched it their entire lives.

Lindsay: Their entire lives, exactly. And so most of the women listening to this are either thinking about or working on rewiring those beliefs. That's what we have to do. And it's hard, because you're challenging social norms, and that can feel funny. It can also make us feel like, what's wrong with me? If this is so normal, how come I feel so bad? That's what I used to think.

Sarah: I know. And surprise, it's an addictive substance. I keep going back to this. Surprise, it's an addictive substance that has messed with everybody's brain in the world. Everybody's. Even people I know who are not drinkers. A girlfriend of mine went to this campfire where they were serving Baileys, and she's like, I had a Baileys, even though I didn't really want to. And I'm like, why did you have it then? Well, because it was fine, it was just one Baileys, and then I rode my bike home.

Lindsay: Yeah, I know. Because we think that we have to.

Give Yourself Permission to Say No This Holiday Season

Sarah: Yeah, and she's not a heavy drinker at all. And I also want to empathize with anybody listening. We sound a little aggressive right now, like, it's an addictive substance. We're not in your moment, we're not in your head in that moment, and it's really, really hard. We've been there. You and I have been there. We've been on the struggle bus, awkwardly holding a glass of sparkling water at a Christmas party, when you just want to go home because you have presents to wrap. You've been shopping all day, you're tired, your boss has been texting all day, whatever. You desperately want to go home. And in that moment, I'm just gonna say, go home. Go the F home. Because you're not gonna feel good AF if you stay at that party, right, Lindsay?

Lindsay: Exactly. Leave. Oh my God, it's so true. If it's not a hell yes, it's a no. That's where we have to be.

Sarah: You're allowed. If you are struggling right now and you're heading into the holidays, give yourself permission to say no to things while you are in this chapter of your life. If you are walking through a season right now where it is very difficult for you to disconnect from alcohol, give yourself grace and permission to just say no. Because all the non-alcoholic wine in the world is not going to help you if you're in a situation where you're tired, you're overworked, you're stressed, you're anxious, and you just want a quick solution. So don't put yourself in that position. Give yourself grace. You're allowed. I'm giving you permission.

Lindsay: Yeah. You have to give yourself what you need. And if you're overextended, that means you need less on your plate. That means you say no.

Sarah: Yeah. And next year and the year after, those parties are still gonna be there, and you're gonna be stronger for it. You're gonna sit this one out, and then you're gonna be back.

Keeping the Wine Ritual Without the Alcohol

Lindsay: Sit on the bench. Exactly. So let's bring this back to the fun part, though. What parts of the wine ritual can we keep, even without alcohol?

Sarah: You can keep all of it. You can keep the glassware. Don't throw out those Burgundy glasses, ladies. Please keep them, because I know you got them as a wedding present and you love them. Or if you hate them because your mother-in-law gave them to you, throw them out. But maybe you ordered some really expensive glassware, and you're like, I can't quit drinking because I have all these beautiful wine glasses and I want to put something in them. Then please keep those glasses.

You can uncork a bottle. I have some examples here, and none of them have corks, and I'll explain why. A lot of non-alcoholic wines don't have corks because there's no alcohol in them. They oxidize a lot faster than regular wine, and corks actually let in oxygen over time. If you're a producer of a non-alcoholic wine, you want that bottle to stay on the shelf for several years, and if there's a cork in it, it tends to degrade a little bit faster. So you're not gonna be able to pull a cork out of everything.

There are a few brands that still have corks. I spoke with an Italian winemaker the other day, and he was adamant that a cork is going to be fine and that it makes the experience. The brand is called Bolle, and they make really great sparkling wines, but they also have a great premium Chardonnay. They have two Chardonnays. One's meh. This one tastes like a white Burgundy and has a cork in it, and the bottle is fat, like a big fat white Burgundy, with a white and yellow label. It looks like it comes from Burgundy, and the grapes are from Burgundy.

Anyway, I'm on a tangent here, but I just want to share that you can still uncork your wine and smell it and enjoy the aroma. Because this is something that winemakers are getting really good at: the aroma of a non-alcoholic wine. I've met several people in the industry who were perfumers in a previous life. We think perfume is just mixing things together, but there's a lot of science involved with fragrance and aroma, which I find fascinating.

The Best Non-Alcoholic Wines for Serious Wine Lovers

Sarah: So I'm gonna give you an example, because I have a couple of things here to show you. This is a really special bottle. If you're a serious wine drinker, you might feel like there's too much of a gap between a high-end wine and the non-alcoholic plonk that might be out there. This is called Century Blend. It's from a company in Austria called Zeronimo. Sorry, did I say Germany? I meant Austria.

Lindsay: You said Austria.

Sarah: Okay, so it's an Austrian winery. They're owned by a very famous winery in Austria. The parent winery was founded by a man who brought malolactic fermentation to red wines in Austria in the '70s and '80s, so his winery is very well known.

And I'm gonna get to the point of this. Usually with non-alcoholic wine, they take wine that exists, they dealcoholize it, they fiddle with it, they backblend it, as it's called, and they add in flavors and some juices if they have to, and then they bottle it. The wine this one started with was 20 years old. It's the only company in the world that makes this. I'm taking you from high to low, because that's the way I roll. Only the best for me. So this is 20-year-old wine that was dealcoholized. It's called Century Blend, and this bottle's $100.

Lindsay: Oh, wow.

Sarah: And you're gonna be like, what? But if you are used to opening a bottle of a $60 Pinot from California, or a Burgundy, or something from Europe on a Friday night, you know what wine tastes like and smells like. And if you understand what a wine that's 20 years old tastes like versus a wine that's three years old, if that's you, you will understand why this is so good. Because you can taste the secondary and tertiary flavors in this, which you can't in most other non-alcoholic wines. So if you want to buy an expensive bottle of wine, or you want to gift something to a family member, this is the one. It's $100, and it's absolutely stunning.

Here's a good example from the US. This is a Pinot Noir from Oregon. It's called Varnum Pinot Noir. They make a Syrah too. I just don't have the bottle here right now, and the Syrah is actually better than this. But I had this wine and it was groundbreaking for me. It was so good. It tastes like an Oregon Pinot Noir. It's absolutely delicious. And I want to say the bottle is $30 or $40, so a lot less, but it's got the quality that you're gonna be looking for in a good one.

Lindsay: So these are the wines for the women who tell me, but Lindsay, I love my wine. And this will actually challenge you: do you love wine?

Sarah: Yeah, they will. The funny thing about non-alcoholic wine for me is, I could easily drink a bottle of regular wine back in the day. Now I usually have one glass of non-alcoholic wine when I open a bottle. Sometimes I'll have two, because it scratches the itch. I want to drink something. And I'll leave it in the fridge, and it goes bad, and I throw it out, usually after two or three days. Zeronimo you could keep for almost a week.

Oceano is another, a wine from California, Oceano Zero. They make a Pinot and a Chardonnay from their vineyards. They used to be a full-alcohol winery, and they've completely shifted to non-alcoholic. They don't make any regular wine anymore. They dealcoholize everything that they grow in their vineyards.

So Oceano, Varnum, Zeronimo: if you love your wine, don't look at the price tag on these and say, well, I don't want to spend that because it's dealcoholized. This is the replacement for you. If you're used to drinking good wine, there are several options out there of that ilk, the best of the best. There are also middle-of-the-road options that are really great. So my advice is always to figure out what you like, what your taste buds are, what your budget is. I've got lots of resources on Some Good Clean Fun, like best bottles under $25. Those aren't going to be anything like the ones I just showed you.

But the reason I brought these to show you is because I know that a lot of the people listening are women who are a little bit older, our age, maybe executives, who have spent the last 20 years, Gen X women and elder millennials, we know wine.

Lindsay: And boomers.

Sarah: And boomers. We know wine. This is our thing. Younger millennials and Gen Z don't really understand wine, because it wasn't their thing. So that's why this is important.

Lindsay: Yeah. So we obviously have your website linked, and that is really the place to go to find all of your expertise, because there are wine reviews after wine reviews.

Sarah: Yeah, that's mainly the bulk of it. I also have a section on non-alcoholic spirits. So if you're interested in zero-proof spirits and you just want an old fashioned, or you want to make something, it's really fun to experiment with zero-proof spirits. I have made some of the best drinks of my life with non-alcoholic stuff, because I'm open to trying new flavors. I would never have gone to a cocktail bar and ordered a cocktail before. I was that girl where everybody's ordering cocktails and I'm like, I'm just gonna have a glass of wine. That's all I wanted. I never experimented with cocktails.

Lindsay: Same.

Sarah: But now there are quite a lot of mocktails on the website. I try to recommend which things to use. Some of them are older and I have to update the zero-proof recommendations, but there's lots there. There are some beers too.

Bring Your Own Non-Alcoholic Drinks to Holiday Parties

Sarah: I forgot, I brought this little can for you guys to see too, since we're talking about the holidays. If you are going to a Christmas party, this is just a good example. Gruvi makes a sangria, and it's not the sangria you might be used to. It's more of a European style. There's cardamom in it. I was actually tasting this with a French woman, and she said it tastes exactly like the wine she would have had on summer holiday in the Alps when she was younger.

So if you're interested in just taking something to a holiday party, cardamom is a very Christmassy flavor. By the way, I'm not making a commission off any of this. I'm not trying to sell you on anything. I just want you guys to know there's this option. And there's other non-alcoholic wine that is portable, and there are mocktails in cans.

That was the one thing I made a note that I wanted to mention. If you're going to a house party and you're really worried about having something to drink there, bring your own stuff. Even if you think the host is gonna get pissed. If that person gets mad at you for bringing your own stuff, that's on them. Other people's reaction to you is none of your business.

Inclusive Hospitality: Hosting an Alcohol-Free-Friendly Party

Lindsay: It's interesting that you're saying this, because it's something I talk a lot about with my clients, especially as we get into the holidays: if you're hosting something, we have to make the environment inclusive for our guests. And I think this goes back to our belief system and how we're conditioned. We think we need to supply all of this alcohol. But what my clients learn day in and day out, and what I learned in my own journey, is that when you show up to an event, you're gonna be so excited that there's not just sparkling water for you to drink. That it's an inclusive situation. Maybe there's a pretty mocktail bar.

I had a client who was really nervous about hosting a book club that she had with her neighborhood, and she ended up making a signature mocktail based on the book. And she was pleasantly surprised. She's like, Lindsay, I supplied two bottles of wine and then my signature mocktail, and everybody just drank the mocktail. Two women had one glass of wine. Everybody was so relieved that they didn't have to drink on a weeknight during book club. So it's kind of like, if you build it, they will come. If you supply the pretty mocktail bar or the non-alcoholic wines, there will be people showing up to your party relieved that there is something for them.

Sarah: Yes. I call it inclusive hospitality. And it goes right from restaurants down to the home, because we have been trained, to your point, to provide alcohol, and the alcohol is up front. When you go to a restaurant, you can see the alcohol right there at the bar, wine bottles all over. And at somebody's Christmas party or an event, there's always alcohol everywhere, front and center. We have been trained to center alcohol, and it's because it's an addictive substance, and big alcohol has taught us through marketing to center that substance.

But when you do the reverse, which is the example you just gave, more people feel included, and there's less pressure. By putting alcohol front and center, you are the pusher. There are people that don't like me right now because I've said to them, you're essentially the pusher. You're pushing alcohol on the people that are coming. Why wouldn't you put your mocktails or your non-alcoholic options out front and center? And I'm gonna stick to my guns on this one, because this is where it has to change, at every level.

And I think it's hard for us to speak up, especially when you're learning how to be alcohol-free, because you're already in such a fragile state. So that's why things never change. But they will eventually. Fewer and fewer people are drinking, and more and more restaurants are including options on their menus. Inclusive hospitality should just be a normal thing soon.

Lindsay: Yeah. And those sections are getting bigger on the menu. It used to be draft list, wine list, and then a tiny little non-alcoholic section with Heineken 0.0, or one mocktail, like cranberry and soda. And now they're taking up more real estate on the menus.

What's Better About an Alcohol-Free Christmas

Lindsay: Okay, I wanna be really conscious of time here. Is there anything that you actually enjoy more about the holidays now that you're alcohol-free?

Sarah: Oh my God, where do you start? Okay, I'll try to make this quick. I enjoy that I'm not trying to wrap a hundred presents on Christmas Eve while drinking triple rum in an eggnog. I really enjoy that my presents are wrapped beforehand, a lot of them. And on Christmas Eve, I'm done and dusted by 10:30. My kids are teenagers now, so they can hear me wrestling around.

I do regret not quitting drinking sooner. But that's one of the things that is so beautiful about the holidays now. I'm not a hot fucking mess at 12:45, still trying to wrap presents and do stockings while I'm tanked from drinking so much Sailor Jerry rum. That is a nightmare to me now. How did I survive that? How did my kids not wake up with no presents under the tree?

Lindsay: Right. And think about when your kids are young and they're waking up at five or six o'clock in the morning and they wanna open presents, and you just went to bed three hours ago.

Sarah: Oh yeah. You should see pictures of me when my kids were little. Bags under my eyes. You can tell that I haven't slept. And then I'm just drinking again. As soon as it's early enough to have Baileys in my coffee, I'm like, Baileys, it's nine o'clock. Okay. So I enjoy not being a hot mess over the actual holiday days, the 23rd to the 26th. I enjoy just having days off. Because you're not really getting days off when you're drinking a lot over the holidays. Your body needs time to recover, and it's never getting the time to actually rest and recover.

Lindsay: Exactly. And some of our holidays are a lot more robust than just Thanksgiving and Christmas. You're in Canada, so Canadian Thanksgiving, which is literally right around the corner. And interfaith families celebrating Jewish holidays and Christmas. I always say I have to have all of my stuff done and dusted before December.

Sarah: Yeah, for sure. The other thing I really enjoy over the holidays, and every year I'm like, thank God, is that there's less chaos leading up to the 24th and the 25th. I'm not as unhealthy. I get to the 24th and I haven't been overeating at parties and overdrinking. I don't feel fat and disgusting. By the 23rd of December, I used to just feel like a big cow. I am so gross. And then you're eating and drinking for another three or four days, and then you've got another week till New Year's. That chaos of everything happening so fast, and drinking and eating and feeling disgusting. I enjoy December way more now, because I'm a lot more health-conscious.

Lindsay: Yeah. And then you get to actually use that week between Christmas and New Year's to just veg out. That's when I actually do my worst eating. My husband and I are basically in our sweatpants, and maybe we'll get out of the house, but it's a lot of just chilling out and food and leftover Christmas cookies.

Sarah: Yeah. And if you're quitting drinking this year, give yourself permission to eat those cookies, even if you think you're gonna gain a little bit of weight, because it's okay. Sugar is a whole other subject, another episode. But please enjoy the food, enjoy the cookies around Christmas and New Year's. It'll feel so good when you're not hungover the next morning. You won't feel like as much of a bag of garbage if you've had a few cookies, because you haven't had those five glasses of wine.

Alcohol-Free Hostess Gifts and Hosting Without Alcohol

Lindsay: It's so true. I want to go back to what we were talking about with pushing alcohol. This actually came up recently with a client of mine, not related to the holidays. She had somebody coming to her house who really loved good whiskey, and she said, so I was gonna give him a bottle of nice whiskey. And I was like, okay, let's just talk about that, because this is a belief. It's in the same vein as the hostess gift. When you're going to some of these parties, or maybe you're hosting and you're met with this pressure of people bringing you bottles of wine or whiskey. So tell me a little bit about what you would give for a hostess gift, and what would you want to receive?

Sarah: So my girlfriends went mental last year. One of my girlfriends had a big Christmas party. Every year the Christmas party moves around her group of friends, and this year it was her turn. My other girlfriend and I got invited, and I brought her a 12-pack of cinnamon buns and coffee. Because in the morning, when you wake up and your house is a disaster after a party, what are you gonna eat for breakfast? You want something good and delicious.

Lindsay: Oh my God, yes, please.

Sarah: So I brought her cinnamon buns and coffee, and everybody went mental. They're like, this is the best hostess gift we've ever seen. I always try to think of the morning after. So if you're going to a party and you need to bring a hostess gift, that's a good one. I also love to receive cookies. Anything that's edible. Honestly, I don't want alcohol. Of course I wanted wine when I was a drinker, and people just knew, Sarah wants wine. But I would have appreciated cookies or something like that too.

And if somebody's coming to your house and they're a drinker, you can always say, bring your own. I know that seems weird. But in this journey, when you're giving up alcohol, it's a big fucking deal. You gotta be able to have some balls and say, you know what, there's no alcohol in my house right now, so if you want something, bring some for yourself. And if they don't like it, too bad. Like I said already, other people's reaction to you is none of your business. It's on them. If they have an issue with you walking through a hard season of life, they can bring their own.

Lindsay: BYOB. That's the name of the game. My whole view on that is, you don't owe anybody an explanation. I would just say, this is a bring-your-own-drinks thing, we'll supply the food. You bring whatever you want.

Sarah: Yeah, that's a good one. You don't owe anyone an explanation, though you might have to give a reason in some situations. But you're right.

Lindsay: Maybe. And I love the idea of, here is a gorgeous baked good that you just throw in the oven for ten minutes tomorrow morning, and a delicious coffee, and call it a day. I love that as a gift.

How to Make Non-Alcoholic Drinks Feel Elevated

Lindsay: I want to go back to creating a sense of occasion without making alcohol the thing that creates the occasion. If you are hosting, how can you make the alcohol-free options feel elevated?

Sarah: Yeah. So I hosted a dinner party, and I made, oh my God, I don't even remember what it was. Beef and pasta. But I really worked hard at creating the ambiance in the room, because everybody who was coming knew that they were drinking non-alcoholic wine. It was a special thing. So I really worked hard on the table with the glassware, and made sure I had really special food that I had handmade. It was the first time I ever made Caesar dressing from scratch with anchovy paste. Oh my God, game changer. So that's how you create the ambiance. Candles, flowers, glassware.

You can put your non-alcoholic wine into a decanter. And I actually recommend that, because with these good wines, you do need to open them up and let them breathe for about 10 or 15 minutes before you pour, just like you would with regular wine. So put the wine in a decanter and make that special. People are always gonna be waiting for the other shoe to drop, because you're drinking something that tastes like real wine. But the flush doesn't come.

Lindsay: Yeah, exactly. Which is why you often just want one or two.

How to Set Up an Alcohol-Free Holiday Drink Bar

Lindsay: So what would you put together for a really beautiful alcohol-free holiday bar if you were hosting something?

Sarah: Number one, there's really, really great non-alcoholic champagne. So I would create a little area where people could pour their own non-alcoholic champagne, and probably provide something to put in it as well. I really like it when you can add a few drops of a flavored syrup, like a cranberry syrup or a pomegranate syrup, into the champagne. Those are not hard to make. If you like doing stuff like this, it's really easy to make a cranberry syrup on your stove.

Lindsay: You're already probably making cranberry sauce for the holidays.

Sarah: Right. It's really easy. You just put sugar, water, and cranberries on the stove and let it simmer, and then mush it through a sieve so the syrup comes through. You can have that on the side with a little note saying, add one or two drops for a holiday flavor. I would do that. I would have bottles of non-alcoholic wine, but I would also have a little bar set up with one or two really special holiday mocktails. You can use the cranberry syrup in a cranberry whiskey kiss too. Think of the flavor you want across things, and set up a couple of different options for people, because not everybody likes wine.

I would also set up a little station for people who don't want something that tastes like alcohol. This is one of the big things I'm really starting to lean into. There are a lot of tea-based drinks right now. I'm just dipping my toe into this world of drinks that come in wine bottles but are made from tea. Younger people don't necessarily want the taste of wine, beer, or spirits, because they've never had it. It's not normal for them, but they really like these adaptogen drinks. So I would probably set up something that didn't taste like alcohol, maybe a more juice-based option, for people who just don't want that flavor. And for kids too, because there's a lot you can serve that kids and adults can both drink. I think having one holiday flavor going across all the different styles of drinks really works. And make sure you have lots of cookies and yummy food.

Lindsay: Yeah, it's all about the food for me now. I could care less about the drinks. I'm like, what are the cookies? What's the dessert?

Sarah: Yeah, the dessert. I always wanna know what's on the dessert table now.

What I Wish I'd Known My First Alcohol-Free Holiday

Lindsay: Exactly. Same. So we're almost wrapped up. We may be talking to some women who are entering their first holiday season and want to stay alcohol-free for it. What is something that you wish you had known during your first alcohol-free holiday season?

Sarah: Well, I have to clarify. My first season, I was still rethinking drinking, so there were a couple of times when I did have some drinks over that first Christmas. I hadn't fully wrapped my head around 100% alcohol-free until January. So the next holiday, 2021, was really when I was like, no alcohol. And at that point I remember thinking, wow, I could have had this peace last year.

I didn't drink too much that first Christmas. I was gonna tell you a story, and we don't have enough time now, but I ended up having some wine on Christmas Day, and it was ridiculous. My daughter turned to me and said, I'm really disappointed in you. She was 12 at the time.

Lindsay: Oh, that's so hard. And that is probably, I will say, the number one thing that the women I talk to and my clients want. It's peace.

Sarah: Yeah. If I had known how much peace I would have had. It's not a regret. It was just, man. Wow. I don't feel like a train wreck on January 2nd. I'm a lifelong downhill skier, and on January 1st I always wanted to go skiing, and it was the worst, because I was hungover and felt like garbage, or I didn't go because I wasn't feeling good. And being able to throw skis on on January 1st, because I can get up at 6 a.m. to get up to the hill, is such a blessing. You don't feel like a train wreck that day. And heading into the new year, you're not making all these resolutions, because you've had peace.

Lindsay: Yeah. Every time you end up drinking and you don't sit in the discomfort of what it's like to not drink, you are procrastinating on getting that peace. And holiday season, we want peace.

Sarah: We do. And we all deserve a break and relaxation, and it's not gonna come in a wine glass, unless it's non-alcoholic.

Where to Find Sarah Kate and Her Non-Alcoholic Wine Reviews

Lindsay: It's so true. Okay, tell us your website. If somebody wants to start exploring NA wine, I definitely recommend that they seek you out.

Sarah: Yeah, somegoodcleanfun.com is the website. If you're looking for wine reviews specifically, you can click on Drink Reviews in the menu, and there are wine reviews, zero-proof spirits, and a couple of beer reviews. There's a mocktail section. I have a Friday newsletter with a weekly wine review, so if you subscribe, you're gonna get one email from me every week, never more than one, unless it's an emergency. I send it out every Friday because I want people to be thinking about the alcohol-free options they can have heading into the weekend. And I often send out promo codes in the newsletter. So that's where you can keep up to date on everything I'm writing about.

And email me if you have questions. Tell me what wine you like, and I'll find you a match. If you say, I like a Pinot Gris, I'll tell you which one is a good fit for you. So if you want personalized recommendations, just send me an email and I'll help you out.

Lindsay: Love it. We will link that, and I'll include your email address in the show notes. This was such a good conversation. I feel like we only covered about 30% of what we wanted to talk about today, but there's only so much time, so we definitely need a part two. And I like to close my guest interviews with this question: what are you doing right now that has you feeling good AF?

Sarah: You know what? This is so silly, but I have started taking care of my health. I never went to the doctor very often, because it was too far, it was a bit of a trek, and I didn't like my doctor. I'd been putting it off and putting it off. And finally, after all this time, I found a new doctor. She's close to me, and she really cares about women's health. And that is making me feel so good AF, to be taking care of my health.

Lindsay: I love it. Well, I am so grateful not only for you coming on the podcast today, but also, of course, for our friendship. It is so meaningful to me. So thank you so much, Sarah.

Sarah: Thank you. You are just such a gem. I know this is a bit of a love fest for people listening, but honestly, guys, Lindsay's great. She's amazing. She's an incredible friend, an incredible podcaster, an incredible coach. So if you're on the fence about working with Lindsay, she will be your biggest friggin' cheerleader.

Lindsay: Oh, you're so sweet. It goes both ways. I just love you so, so much, and I'm so grateful for our friendship. I feel like we were meant to be friends. Constant sadness that we don't live just a smidge closer.

Sarah: We were meant to be friends. Thank you for having me. Maybe I'll move to Vermont.