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Mocktails

Our mocktails are an opportunity to promote healthy drinking in the community. 

There are four mocktails promotions you can run to promote healthy drinking in your community - the new Blue grit mocktail for the NSW Seniors Festival, Literary Mocktails, the summer mocktails, and the Make it a Mocktail social media campaign. 

Mocktail tastings can be included as part of Drug Info's Know Your Standards program, as well as making a perfect accompaniment to author talks and other general library programming.

This page provides links and information to help you run mocktail events in your library. 

Check our social media page for campaign resources and suggested text for posting on your library’s social media channels. 

Mocktails social media

Mocktails for the NSW Seniors Festival

Blue Grit is a western-themed recipe to promote to your library's older community during the NSW Seniors Festival. Go to the campaign page for some helpful resources.

Mocktails for Seniors Festival

Winter mocktail

Drug Info's winter mocktail The Toddy in the Library is a tea-based drink served hot or warm and makes for the perfect alcohol-free winter warmer. Our winter mocktails page has a range of resources to help promote the campaign.

WINTER MOCKTAIL

Summer Mocktails

The summer mocktail campaign promotes fun and refreshing alternatives to alcohol, in addition to serving as a reminder to take care of yourself during the festive season. We have created two mocktails for the summer mocktail campaign:

  • Fraise in the Sun: This mocktail's title is inspired by Neville Cardus’ cricketing classic Days in the Sun, and with a refreshing mix of strawberry, apple and ginger, Fraise in the Sun will be enjoyed by cricket lovers and non-lovers alike. 
  • Bah Humbug: The Bah Humbug is our lime and pomegranate homage to Dickens. Festive revellers can get into the spirit sans spirits with this delicious, zesty summer blend.

Our summer mocktails page has a range of resources to help promote the campaign.

Summer mocktails 

Group of mocktails in glasses

Literary mocktails

Literary mocktails are book-themed, alcohol-free drinks, inspired by well-known literary works. The names were suggested and voted upon by library fans. 

Mocktails are a great alternative to alcoholic drinks for designated drivers, pregnant women, people wanting to reduce their alcohol intake, young people or anyone who wants to avoid alcohol.

See more about the program on the Drug Info website.

Suggested activities

What sort of activities can libraries run using the literary mocktails? Following are just a few examples of library events:

  • Wollondilly Shire Libraries hosted 'Mocktails and Monet', a paint-and-sip activity in which participants could develop their artistic skills while sampling mocktails from Drug Info's collection. Some brave participants even tried painting while wearing beer goggles!
  • Sutherland Shire Libraries presented 'Shaken, stirred, mixed and drunk', a talk on alcohol and literature accompanied by literary mocktail recipes. Participants enjoyed a choice of three literary mocktails as they listened to speaker David Lewis, who gave a history of some famous writers with a liking for hard liquor. Sutherland's Facebook page featured a 20-second film clip to highlight one of the mocktails they would be creating at the event, and one of their talented staff created literary mocktail-themed 3D-printed swizzle sticks to give away in a goodie bag.  
  • Katoomba Library celebrated their fifth birthday with literary mocktails. Inspired by the State Library’s recipes and coupled with the colourful postcards, the icy-cold, fruity concoctions such as ‘Grape Expectations’ and ‘Tequila Mockingbird’ intrigued and refreshed visitors of all ages as they enjoyed music, art and entertainment throughout the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre.
  • As part of Burwood Council's Youth Week activities Burwood Library hosted 'Burwood Bar and Beats', a Mocktail event at Burwood Park. The event featured a pop up library providing drug and alcohol info, a bar providing free mocktails, an activity using the beer goggles where youth had to navigate the cones and a Know Your Standards activity. Over six hundred mocktails were served and one hundred showbags of drug and alcohol info for youth distributed. 
  • City of Canada Bay Libraries held a Drop-In style event for teens aged 12-18. The library borrowed a set of beer goggles from the State Library and made mocktails for attendees to taste-test. They also displayed YouTube videos shown on large screen with effects of alcohol and drugs and made take away goodie bags. The event was a wonderful chance for library staff to start a conversation with young people and parents. 

Promotional material

Find literary mocktail recipe cards and posters to download and order here.

Social media

Follow the campaign on Twitter and Facebook

Public libraries can join in by sharing posts and tweets or posting about their own activities. You could use these channels to provide links to useful online resources in order to reinforce the messages and to promote the Literary Mocktail and other Know Your Standards material.

Use the following hashtags:

#literarymocktails 

#knowyourstandards

#nswpubliclibraries

#druginfolibsnsw

Make it a Mocktail Make it a mocktail and glass

The Make it a Mocktail campaign was created as a response to COVID-19. Even with the end of COVID-19 restrictions however, the Make it a Mocktail campaign resources are a colourful reminder about healthy living through reduced alcohol consumption which can be shared on social media.

Campaign resources and suggested social media text are available on our social media page.

Your feedback

If you run a mocktail event in your library, we'd love to hear about it. Let us know about your event via the form below.

Feedback form