Who Are Nonalcoholic Drinks for, Anyway?

Friends who drink are so happy for me. For 24 sober years, I’ve settled for seltzer, but finally I can have a cocktail again—a $20 tumbler of faux gin and tonic. “Regardless of why you’re not drinking, we’re proud to offer you the choice of a flavorful, sophisticated, adult option,” writes Seedlip, a top seller of nonalcoholic spirits, on its website. Its yummy aromatic botanicals include grapefruit, “embellished with fantastic bitterness”; ginger, with its “mysterious warmth of root”; and hay, whose flavor is “unique.”

Unique, indeed. I didn’t put down alcohol to drink hay.