For a New Year’s Eve party I made a slight variant on Dan Pelosi’s hibiscus-based alcohol-free alternative to a Negroni, and it was a hit. People liked it on its own, and I’m told it was also great with either gin or tequila added.
In general, I’ve been underwhelmed by many non-alcoholic alternatives to cocktails I’ve had, especially simpler ones with just a few ingredients that I’ve made at home. They’re often missing the warmth / bite of alcohol, the flavors that alcohol can help extract from a component, and are often overly sweet.
My usual go-to for something that scratches the cocktail itch without alcohol is a shrub, which extracts strong fruit flavors in sugar with vinegar and tastes good just mixed with soda water.
But I’ve always had a soft spot for both the negroni and the paloma, so when I saw this recipe I had to give it a try. It also looked like something that would be easy to make ahead in batches.
My first time making this, I found the clove flavor a bit too dominant (granted, I was using some relatively fresh cloves from Diaspora Spice Co, which might be more potent than my usual pantry stock), so I would tone that down on a remake. I also went heavier on the grapefruit juice than the original recipe, and would go even lighter on the sugar and add more to taste if needed, as I’ve found hibiscus teas vary widely brand to brand in how sweet they are (even if they don’t have added sugar in the traditional sense, they often include blackberry leaf or stevia leaf sweeteners). My revised plan is below:
Revised Hibiscus Mocktail recipe
For a large batch (serving 12+):
- 20 hibiscus tea bags
- 1 Tbsp cloves
- 3 Tbsp black peppercorns
- The zest from one entire grapefruit
- 1/2 cup sugar (add more to taste when assembling the mocktail, if needed)
- ~32oz grapefruit juice (a mild pink grapefruit juice, unsweetened)
- ~48oz tonic water
A few nights before the party (though this could have been the morning of):
I peeled the zest of the grapefruit off in wide thin strips, trying not to include pith but not going out of my way (I think the bitterness of some grapefruit pith in particular works well with this sort of cocktail).
I added the hibiscus tea bags, cloves, peppercorns, and zest in about a quart of water, and brought it to a low simmer.
I added the sugar, stirred until dissolved, and let it simmer for a few more minutes.
I let the spiced tea cool to room temperature, then stored it in the fridge (I also had the grapefruit juice and tonic water in the fridge the day of the party, so I could be mixing pre-chilled ingredients without needing to stir the cocktail on ice to chill it / dilute it).
Just before guests arrived, I mixed a big pitcher of this mocktail on ice in an approximate ratio of 1 part spiced hibiscus : 1 part grapefruit juice : 2 parts tonic (but mix to taste as all of these components vary in intensity depending on the source). I could also add additional sugar / simple syrup if needed for balance.