— Char Nolan

So, um, you know, a lot of times during the holidays, um, alcoholic beverages are kind of a norm, and for a lot of people, they don't drink alcohol. Um, I, myself, uh, my, my, myself and my wife, we do drink, but we do take probably about half of the year off kind of sections to be able to, uh, you know, just keep healthy at the same time. Um, so we find ourselves a lot of times drinking non-alcoholic drinks, even though a lot of our friends are drinking in Wisconsin, drinking is pretty popular, so a lot of our friends drink, even though we don't. So we come up with a lot of, uh, alternatives. Um, now for the holiday wise, uh, there are a lot of things you can think of that, that you can literally just get store bought that are non-alcoholic. Um, eggnog probably is one of those. There's, you know, a huge variety of different kinds of, uh, uh, non-dairy egg nogs that are out there. And you, you can drink those just on their own, put them over ice. A great alternative to be able to do with those. If you wanna do something like a fancier cocktail that looks really pretty, maybe try putting a little bit of seltzer water and cranberry juice and maybe a little, uh, ginger beer, the, you know, the non-alcoholic ginger beer. Um, and put that into, you know, a high baller with just like, uh, the ice, put a little lime around the outside and you have a nice cranberry cocktail for the holidays as well too. There are also a lot of products out there that are non-alcoholic to be able to make it appear that everybody's drinking the same thing, right? So, uh, there's a great wine out there called null. So it's a red wine that's actually very, uh, it has, it's probably the most rated, you know, red wine out there that's a non-alcoholic as well. Highly recommend that as well. Um, you know, when my mom was here over the summer, she bought us these things, which are, uh, the curious brand, and it's curious, this is number one, this is a Negroni. Um, so, uh, this is a non-alcoholic, it's a pomegranate negroni, um, and it's basically a, they call it a booze free cocktail, right? So you just pour this over ice, uh, and put your orange wedge over the top of it, and it's quite refreshing in the summertime on a hot day. So, uh, there are a lot of different products to be able to pick out like that. Um, but when you're making things yourself at home, I think just keeping it really simple, like the eggnog, the kind of, you know, uh, looking at other versions of traditional alcoholic drinks. So, um, like, like I just mentioned, the eggnog, but also doing the cranberry drink, like I had mentioned too, you can do even things like, um, like a ser water and mint with a little bit of sugar in it to be able to get kind of that, um, you know, kind of tropical drink as well too. Um, I've seen a lot of versions of like mal wines too, so you can actually do, again, a non-alcoholic wine and do, uh, a mal wine with those, the different fruits in them, um, to be able to keep that kind of festive approach as well too. So I hope that's a couple good ideas for you and your family, Char. Um, and cheers to the end of the year. It's been a fantastic year of events.