A Vegan diet is excellent for you and your environment. Strict adherence to this diet can be a little challenging. You can easily control what you ingest a home, but you have to stay informed on what goes into the ready products that you buy at the stores. You also have to be alert when eating out. While most of the non-vegan products are apparent, some are tricky to figure out, like booze.
Most people aren’t aware that many drinks are prepared using animal-derived products. Egg foam, shellfish chitin, beetle carmine, cream, honey, gelatin (from fish or other animals) are all added to various drinks. The filtering process before bottling may also render the drink non-vegan, and you won’t be able to detect this from the labels as alcoholic products are exempt from standard labelling requirements. So when you adopt a vegan lifestyle, do you give up hard drinks completely? That is not required. As more and more people turn vegan, some companies have made the switch too. You can prepare your vegan cocktails without compromising on the taste, look or sensation.
You can look up the vegan status of any popular drink at Barnivore. It is a beneficial database. Ensure the peace of your mind with a little bit of research beforehand. It is better than guilt trips later.
To make the task a little easier for you, we have prepared a list of the top 5 drinks to enjoy for vegans:
Blood orange and ginger margarita:
This drink has tequila and citrus in the right amounts. When buying tequila, go for a bottle that says 100% blue agave. You can adjust the amount of ginger beer according to your preferences, and as per the strength of the bottle, you have at hand. In a cocktail shaker, add ice, 2 ounces blood orange juice, 1.5 ounces tequila, and some lime juice. Give it a good shake. Pour it into a glass, top with ginger beer as preferred. Garnish with slices of blood orange. You could get fancy and rim glasses beforehand with the juice of blood oranges and sugar and blood orange zest combo. It is a sweet, fiery drink to try on those long winter nights.
Vegan White Russian
White Russians constitute either milk or cream. It is possible to enjoy White Russians without any harm to your vegan lifestyle. You need to get a little creative. You could use coconut milk/soy milk/cashew milk instead of milk and mix it up with coffee liqueur (Kahlua) for an oh-so-tantalizing vegan version of the famous cocktail. Just a quick tip, if you are using cashew milk, we recommend soaking the cashews for a few hours, before you grind them. Our favourite personal substitute is cashew milk. This Vegan White Russian will be such a welcome drink in your parties on the cold nights.
Cucumber Gin Martini
This drink is a favourite with people because of the benefits of cucumbers and gin. It makes for such a refreshing beverage that you can enjoy without any guilt. All you require is cucumber-infused gin and dry vermouth. You could freeze cucumber sliced with simple syrup in ice-cube trays for ”botanical ice cubes”. Garnish with cucumber shavings woven onto cocktail sticks. Point to be kept in mind, gin goes well with the things that are used in its distillation process. If your gin were distilled using cucumber, it would be the right choice for your Cucumber Gin Martini. It is a drink even your non-vegan diet-conscious friends will enjoy!
Vegan Mint Juleps
It is incredibly straightforward to tweak the Mint Juleps recipe to make it suitable for vegans. One important thing to look into while preparing this drink is sugar. You must use vegan sugar. All you need to prepare this drink is mint-infused vegan sugar syrup, bourbon and lots of ice. You might be able to convince your non-vegan friends to come over to the vegan side with such a fantastic drink.
Lychee Vodka Martini:
This fantastic but straightforward drink only requires two main ingredients – canned lychees and vodka. Use a cocktail shaker to mix the vodka and syrup. Line your glass with the cut-up fruit, add lots of ice, and pour the vodka-syrup mixture over it. Viniq is an excellent choice of vodka to make this fantastic drink.
As a parting note, we would like to tell you that you don’t have to give up your old favourites altogether. You can tweak your favourite drinks to turn them vegan too. When you can do it, your drinks can do it too! You could infuse your booze and add custom flavours. You could be the next vegan mixologist! The vegan lifestyle may require some extra effort, but you will realize it is worth it.
