Without the alcohol

Historic non-alcoholic drinks

Long before anyone said “mocktail”, people mixed serious drinks without alcohol: for health, for faith, for temperance or simply for thirst. These are the drinks they made on purpose, under the names they used.

Updated November 2, 2026

Looking for a cocktail without the spirit? Our vintage mocktails are the mixed drinks of the bar and the soda fountain, made alcohol-free from the start.

Throwing a Prohibition party? Our 1920s drinks include the soda-fountain drinks America poured when the bars went dry.

Planning a dry month? Our Dry January drinks gather the old recipes worth making in the depth of winter.

Every drink here has no alcohol added, and comes in one of two kinds. Always alcohol-free drinks were made without alcohol in their own day, from Roman posca to soda-fountain lemonade. Alcohol-free version drinks are our modern takes on drinks that had wine, beer or spirits in the period source, with the swap explained on the recipe. Fermented drinks such as small beer or ginger beer are labeled low-alcohol, because fermentation leaves some behind.

Every era had its own

Ancient Rome and Greece: Oxymel (honey and vinegar), honey water, fresh grape juice
Medieval and Tudor: Almond milk and whey drinks; small beer was the everyday low-alcohol option
1600s and 1700s: Coffee, tea and chocolate arrive; lemonade sellers in Paris; Ottoman sherbets
1800s: Temperance cups, shrubs, switchel, ginger beer and soda water
1900s to 1930s: Soda-fountain drinks, bottled grape and apple juice, Prohibition fruit punches

Make it today

Alcohol-free recipes

Which can I make at home?

Two low greenish glass cups of clear golden grape drink beside a terracotta jug on a worn limestone window ledge.

Always alcohol-free

Ancient Rome · Sodas & Soft Drinks · 1 hr 35 min total

Adynamon, Pliny’s Wine Without Strength

White grape must boiled with half its volume of water until the water is gone: the Roman ‘wine’ given to people who were not allowed wine. Alcohol-free.

A porcelain cup of clear amber tea on a saucer beside a teapot, a small dish of rough white sugar lumps and a plate with two buttered bread slices and thin dried beef, on a scrubbed wooden table by a softly lit window.

Always alcohol-free

Hot Drinks · 7 min total

Albany Breakfast Tea with Sugar in the Mouth, 1749

Black tea without milk, drunk with a small lump of sugar held in the mouth: breakfast tea as a Swedish visitor saw the Dutch of Albany take it in 1749.

A golden-amber alcohol-free ale cup with floating toast and lemon peel in a plain glass jug, beside two small stemmed glasses, pale green grapes and lemon balm on pale wood against a cream wall.

Alcohol-free version

Punches & Cups · 15 min total

Alcohol-Free Ale Cup, with White Grape Juice over Toast

Spencer’s 1903 Ale Cup made without alcohol: a 0.0% ale and white grape juice poured cold over hot toast with lemon, sugar, nutmeg and a sprig of balm.

Why without

Why people drank without alcohol

Thirst and work. Roman soldiers and slaves drank posca, wine vinegar stirred into water: cheap, sour and quick to make.

Health. Pliny counted oxymel, honey boiled with vinegar and salt, among the drinks Romans used as medicines. Medieval books give thin oat gruel for the sick.

Faith. On fast days the medieval Church ruled out milk from animals, so kitchens made almond milk instead and drank and cooked with it.

Temperance and Prohibition. The temperance movement of the 1800s gave many households a reason to drink without alcohol. In the United States, Prohibition (1920 to 1933) filled the soda fountains, though the trade argued about how much of that boom the dry law caused.

Every recipe here starts from a period book, with the source named on the page, and is made today without adding any alcohol.

Keep going

More alcohol-free recipes

A white bowl of dark purple spiced grape juice with a browned, clove-studded lemon partly sunk in it, the tip of a cinnamon stick and a long steel spoon, beside a small handled glass cup on old oak before a slate-blue wall.

Alcohol-free version

Hot Drinks · 1 hr 5 min total

Alcohol-Free Bishop, Spiced Grape Juice with a Roasted Lemon

Hot red grape juice with a roasted clove-studded lemon, boiled-down spices, fresh lemon and nutmeg: the 1847 Oxford bishop made without the port.

A tall glass of clear amber sparkling kvass with lemon and mint stands beside a half-full jug, rye bread and half a lemon on pale wood against a sage wall.

Alcohol-free version

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 3 hr 30 min total

Alcohol-Free Bread Kvass with Lemon and Mint

Dried rye bread and fresh mint steeped in boiling water, sweetened with dark treacle and sharpened with lemon, then lifted with soda water: Molokhovets’s 1887 kvass made without yeast.

A straight-sided tumbler of clear pale gold ginger beer with fine bubbles and a thin white foam, beside a knob of fresh ginger and half a lemon on a chipped green-painted counter.

Alcohol-free version

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 1 hr 5 min total

Alcohol-Free Ginger Beer, the Fountain Way

Fresh ginger syrup, lemon juice and cold soda water, never fermented: an alcohol-free ginger beer after the street fountains of 1850s London.

A brown stoneware mug of cloudy golden cider with melting butter stands beside a steel pan, red apple, cloves and allspice on pale oak against sage green.

Alcohol-free version

Hot Drinks · 7 min total

Alcohol-Free Hot Buttered Cider with Allspice and Cloves

Jerry Thomas’s 1862 hot spiced rum without the rum: sweet apple cider heated with whole allspice and cloves, finished with a piece of butter melting on top.

A cream earthenware jug of deep purple-red negus with three lemon slices stands with its lid and two handled glass cups, one filled and dusted with nutmeg, on pale oak.

Alcohol-free version

Hot Drinks · 30 min total

Alcohol-Free Negus, Hot Grape and Blackcurrant with Lemon

Hot red grape and blackcurrant juice poured into a covered jug of lemon sugar, sliced lemons and a little spice, then grated over with nutmeg: negus by the 1847 Oxford method, without the port.

One small short-stemmed glass heaped with creamy white frozen Punch Romaine on a plain white plate beside a silver teaspoon, on pale oak before a pale blue-gray wall.

Alcohol-free version

Punches & Cups · 4 hr total

Alcohol-Free Punch Romaine with White Grape Juice

Escoffier’s half-frozen Punch à la Romaine without the wine or rum: white grape juice, orange and lemon steeped in syrup, churned to a soft ice and lightened with Italian meringue.

A foaming pewter tankard and a small faceted tumbler of bubbly golden shandy beside a corked cream-and-brown stoneware bottle, on a weathered pale green garden table in dappled sunlight.

Alcohol-free version

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 2 min total

Alcohol-Free Shandy Gaff, Ginger Beer and Alcohol-Free Ale

Terrington’s 1869 shandy gaff made without alcohol: a 0.0% ale topped up with ginger beer in equal parts, poured cold.

A white china bowl of pale golden tea punch holds lemon rounds and a ladle beside a white teapot and cup on pale wood against a terracotta wall.

Alcohol-free version

Punches & Cups · 15 min total

Alcohol-Free Tea Punch, Green Tea, Lemon and Sugar

The green tea, lump sugar rubbed on lemon peel and lemon juice of Jerry Thomas’s 1862 tea punch, with hot water in place of the brandy and rum, served from a warm bowl.

A straight-sided glass of clear pale golden ginger drink stands beside a corked brown stoneware bottle and a knob of fresh ginger on a worn oak sideboard against a red-brown wall.

Alcohol-free version

Sodas & Soft Drinks · 1 hr 25 min total

Alcohol-Free Temperance Ginger Wine

A still ginger drink with no wine in it: sugar, tartaric acid and boiling water heated with ginger and chile, after an 1887 Temperance Cook Book. A modern alcohol-free version.

A white mug of pale foamy hot milk and egg batter dusted with nutmeg sits beside a copper milk pan and whole nutmeg on pine against an ochre wall.

Alcohol-free version

Hot Drinks · 20 min total

Alcohol-Free Tom and Jerry, the Batter in Hot Milk

The spiced egg batter of the 1862 Tom and Jerry, beaten light and stirred into milk just off the boil, with nutmeg on top: the hot Christmas drink without the brandy.

A maple bowl of cloudy golden-brown apple juice holds two split roasted apples, soaked toast, cinnamon and lemon peel, with a wooden ladle and a wooden cup on a weathered table in a winter orchard.

Alcohol-free version

Hot Drinks · 55 min total

Alcohol-Free Wassail, Hot Spiced Apple Juice with Roasted Apples

Cloudy apple juice heated with cinnamon, ginger, lemon and nutmeg, with roasted apples and toast floating in the bowl: our modern alcohol-free take on the 1869 wassail.

Three short-stemmed glasses hold pale yellow-green whey beneath cream, with one golden cap, beside two oranges and a lemon on wood against an olive wall.

Alcohol-free version

25 min total

Alcohol-Free Whipt Syllabub over Lemon Whey

Cream whisked with orange and lemon juice, grated lemon peel and fine sugar, spooned over sweetened lemon whey, which Hannah Glasse offered in 1747 in place of the wine.

See all 120 alcohol-free recipes