Love & Salt
Photo Courtesy of Love & Salt LA
In the history of alcoholic drinking, there’s never been a better time to get your mocktail mojo on — or at least try “healthy” cocktails. Bartenders, inspired by the juice bar and farm-to-table trend, are mixing up delicious drinks with in-season, organic produce, such as herbs and superfood veggies. With the New Year’s betterment resolutions in high gear, drinking to your health is de rigueur. Here’s where to detox drink now in Los Angeles.
Love & Salt
Mocktail: The Grape White Hope
Ingredients: Sage, seedless white grapes, elderflower syrup, pear juice, soda water.
Benefits: When sage from the leaves is made into a drink, it’s called the “thinker’s tea” and, apparently, also eases depression.
eLOVate Vegan Café
Cocktail: Juniper Kaletini
Ingredients: A special blend of juniper green gin, kale, celery, cucumber, parsley, spinach and lime.
Benefits: The vegetable components offer a nutritional blast of a variety of vitamins, including vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium and B12.
Tart, Photo Courtesy of Tart Restaurant
Tart Restaurant
Cocktail: So Fresh, So Clean
Ingredients: Hanson cucumber vodka, muddled mint and cucumber, soda water splash simple syrup that’s shaken with ice.
Benefits: Mint is great for digestion and cleans the palate. Cucumber works wonders for digestion and contains lignans, which assist in lowering certain risks for cancers.
SLS Hotel Beverly Hills
Cocktail: What’s Up Doc?
Ingredients: Grey goose, cointreau, carrot juice, and basil air.
Benefits: Carrots are full of beta-carotene — a great source of vitamin A — which is essential for healthy skin, a strong immune system and good vision.
Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel
Cocktail: June Gloom
Ingredients: Vodka, coconut rum, “Charcoal Lemonade” by Juice Served Here, alkaline water and fresh lime.
Benefits: The key ingredient of charcoal lemonade aids in proper digestion. Furthermore, alkaline water also improves gut health.
Ray’s and Stark Bar
Cocktail: The Rothko
Ingredients: Scotch, mezcal, fresh-pressed carrot juice, brown sugar syrup, lemon and ginger.
Benefits: The smoky, intense flavors of scotch and mezcal with fresh-pressed carrot juice make for a vibrant beta carotene-rich cocktail.
Fig & Olive
Mocktail: Jardin De Fraises
Ingredients: Clover kefir, muddled fresh strawberries and fig, clover honey and a touch of fig balsamic.
Benefits: The health benefits of kefir include its ability to detoxify the body, clean out the digestive tract, eliminate harmful bacteria and improve the immune system.
Bar 1886, Photo Courtesy of The Raymond
Bar 1886 at The Raymond
Mocktail: Cinnabar Swizzle
Ingredients: Cinnamon syrup, with pineapple, grapefruit and cranberry juice, served over ice with a splash of soda.
Benefits: Cinnamon, prized for its medicinal properties for centuries, is loaded with antioxidants and is a strong anti-inflammatory.
Gracias Madre
Mocktail: A Shrubby For My Bubby
Ingredients: A pluot and shiso shrub, sea salt and sparkling water.
Benefits: “Shrubs” are a fancy barkeep term for drinking sweetened vinegars. Drinking vinegars has been said to aid in weight loss, lower cancer risk and maintain blood sugar levels.
Taste on Melrose
Cocktail: Strawberry Hill
Ingredients: Strawberry puree, fresh basil, lemonade, soda water and fresh lemon.
Benefits: Packed with antioxidants (like vitamin C), strawberries offer a wide range of nutritional perks such as boosting heart-health.
Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village
Cocktail: Garden Row Cocktail
Ingredients: Kale, spinach, parsley, romaine, apple, ginger, Greenbar organic citrus vodka (made in L.A.) and soda water.
Benefits: Kale has been the groovy go-to green for years now. But parsley is actually a superfood as well, stuffed with vitamin K and appetite-suppressing powers.
Elysian
Cocktail: Frogtown Afternoons (only available during Sunday brunch)
Ingredients: Bourbon, Art of Tea’s fig cinnamon black tea, lemon, honey syrup, rosemary and soda water.
Benefits: Black tea is rich in antioxidants known as polyphenols, while rosemary is a mood-lifter and anti-ager.
