Blackberry Cooler, Orchid Thief and Mumbai Mule.Credit Gentl and Hyers for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Rebecca Bartoshesky.

We have never before seen an article by this author that would be considered relevant to the themes we write about, link to, and find worthy of promotion; normally she writes about “drinks,” drinking culture, bar stuff. But here she touches on a theme we have spoken of often among ourselves in our day to day work (but would not likely have ever written about here): that ridiculous word “mocktail” — the word police should come and take it away, lock it up and throw away the key.

On the other hand, we have been watching and tasting in amazement as our beverage teams in India, Costa Rica, Belize and Baja all come up with ever-more inventive ways to enjoy liquids that do not intoxicate. Our biggest challenge, after they do the heavy lifting on the chemistry side of the equation is finding words worthy of a name, and worthy of a category that means non-alcoholic. So, hats off to Rosie on this one:

Don’t Call Them ‘Mocktails’

By ROSIE SCHAAP

I’m always thrilled when a certain former drinking buddy comes to see me at the bar. He stopped drinking alcohol years ago, but he’s as fun to be around as he was when we sat side by side at a corner bar in TriBeCa many nights in the ’90s — probably more so.

Quitting drinking, whether it’s for a month (as many are tempted to do this time of year) or forever, shouldn’t have to mean forgoing all the other, and arguably deeper, pleasures of bar culture: community and conversation. Of course it’s easier — and maybe economically sounder — to drink at home, but we go to bars because other people are there, and the fellowship we find with them is, for many of us, more important than the pints and shots.

I want my friend to be as happy and relaxed at the bar as any other customer, and he deserves something better than a cranberry and seltzer. Given the limited resources at my small, neighborhood pub, a virgin bloody mary usually does the trick — and mixed with a good nonalcoholic beer, it makes an excellent base for a virgin michelada, too.

Cocktail and restaurant bars are also making a greater effort to make nondrinkers feel welcome and well looked after. Some have dedicated nonalcoholic drink menus. On the list at Boston’s Bar Mezzana is a festive number called the Orchid Thief, fragrant with orange and tinged with vanilla, fizzed up with club soda and served in a flute — a celebratory glassful of booze-free bubbly. Abigail Gullo at Compère Lapin in New Orleans gladly accommodates nondrinkers with a cooler composed of fresh blackberries, citrus juices and orgeat, an almondy syrup that hints at the flavor of amaretto.

Another creative bartender, the Los Angeles-based Gabriella Mlynarczyk, has deliberately developed recipes that are delicious and satisfying with or without alcohol. One is the Mumbai Mule, for which she concocts a spicy syrup of ginger, turmeric, coriander, cumin, paprika, cayenne and honey. She then mixes it with coconut milk, tops it off with ginger beer and garnishes it with fresh curry leaves.

Part of the appeal of sitting at a bar with a cocktail is that it’s an opportunity to sip something special, unusual and lovely to behold. The three options featured here succeed in all these criteria. But let’s not call them mocktails — they’re not mocking anything. They stand on their own flavorful merits…

Read the whole article here.