""I decided to stop drinking," he said. "Not even knowing if it was going to be for a week or for a month or forever. I was starting to drink a lot because I lost my mom in 2020.""
""Even though I didn't have any wreckage, it was starting to feel off," he explained. "I needed to change something." He added that alcohol consumption "was a crutch" that, for him, "was actually a cage.""
""I was like, 'Oh, this kind of scratches the itch,'" he said. "And since then, every weekend I would think, 'What ingredient"
Derick Santiago stopped drinking after losing his mother in 2020 and shifted toward alcohol-free cocktails as a lifestyle change. He founded @MocktailWiz, wrote two mocktail books, and became a prominent voice in Southern California's zero-proof scene. He experiments with pantry ingredients and cocktail techniques to recreate the flavors and sensations of alcoholic drinks. A 2022 experiment produced a spicy margarita riff using pineapple, lime, Tajín, muddled jalapeño for heat, soda for effervescence, and a chili-lime salt rim. He focuses on acidity, spice, and texture to mimic ethanol's bite and satisfy cocktail cravings.
Read at Daily News
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]