Phase & care: P2. Cranberry juice is tart and acidic and it sat better with me once things had settled. Sparkling drinks are a phase 2 thing for me too. Start with more apple juice and less cranberry, and go by your own tolerance.
Weddings are the hard ones. Standing there with nothing in your hand invites the question, and the question invites the story, and some days I don’t want to tell the story. This gets me a glass that looks like everyone else’s.
Ingredients
Makes: 2 glasses · about 85 kcal a glass, no fat
- 150 ml (2/3 cup) unsweetened cranberry juice
- 150 ml (2/3 cup) clear apple juice
- 200 ml (generous 3/4 cup) sparkling water
- 2 thin slices of peeled apple
- Ice
- 1 tsp (5 ml) honey, optional, if the cranberry is very sharp
Method
- Fill two tall glasses with ice.
- Mix the cranberry and apple juice in a jug. Taste it. If it makes you wince, add the honey and stir until it dissolves.
- Pour over the ice, filling each glass about two thirds.
- Top with sparkling water, poured down the side of the glass so it keeps its fizz.
- Add an apple slice. Stir once, gently.
Fat: zero.
Notes from my kitchen
Unsweetened cranberry juice, not cranberry drink. The sweetened versions are mostly sugar and they taste like it.
If you find it too acidic, shift the ratio to two parts apple, one part cranberry. That’s my phase 2 starting point and I still make it that way most of the time.
Sparkling water bloats some people. Flat water works and it still looks like a drink.
Stepan’s Rule: alcohol is zero, and holding a glass is not a compromise on that. The glass is for the room. The contents are for you.
Not medical advice. A patient’s kitchen, not a clinic.
The community has a whole thread on getting through weddings, birthdays and work drinks without spending the night explaining yourself. Join us.