Book Review: Mindful Mixology by Derek Brown

Across the globe, people’s interest in non alcoholic or low-ABV drinks has grown exponentially over the past two years. Before the trend was trendy, there were people like Derek Brown, who have spent years developing ideas around what to drink when you’re not drinking. His second book Mindful Mixology was released in early 2022 and should be an essential on your bar if you’re rethinking drinking.

As with many well produced no and low alcoholic cocktail tomes, Mindful Mixology is rich in beautiful and tactile photography that makes your mouth water and your hand desperate to hold the elegant glassware. You can practically taste the pineapple in the Not-A-Colada recipe. It’s easy to peruse and drool over all the beautiful cocktails that Brown has presented so elegantly.

Brown has the pedigree of an extremely talented mixologist, cocktail historian and all around enthusiast for drinks of any kind. He’s applied his knowledge and techniques into a collection of his own recipes for both low alcohol and no alcohol that range from easy to intermediate. What makes Mindful Mixology different from other non alcoholic recipe collections is the recipes have all been developed by him, rather than a collection of recipes from other notable bars and bartenders.

With some non alcoholic recipe books, ingredients are inaccessible, techniques can be complicated and in some cases, days of work prepping ingredients are involved. Those recipes are not for the faint of heart, and definitely not for a working mom seeking a few minutes respite before the dinner rush begins. What is nice about this book is how many of Brown’s recipes are simple and accessible with grocery store ingredients like the eponymous apple cider vinegar. Anyone can pick up this book and get started and most are fairly simple to pull together with the standard bar tools.

With non alcoholic cocktails, there are certain ingredients that you need to invest in when your drinks become more sophisticated. Brown has included lots of recipes that will require hunting down a specialty product if you’re in the mood. Acids, vinegars and syrups should all be part of the mindful drinkers tool kit, and Mindful Mixology demonstrates this well.

On each page, Brown takes the interesting parts of a recipe and adds colour and character with a few simple sentences introducing his creations. When describing a simple switchel, here’s what he has to say:

“I’ve heard switchel described as the Gatorade of the 18th century, used as a refresher for farm hands. But we shouldn’t be coy about it: it was often drunk by enslaved people. We just shouldn’t obscure its terrible past as the pop-history of switchel often does.”

This was extremely important to acknowledge and it just demonstrates how Brown is attempting to integrate non alcoholic drinks into the modern conversation in an inclusive way.

It shouldn’t be missed that this book is not about never drinking again. In fact, the title Mindful Mixology says it all: being mindful of what you are drinking via low or no alcohol drinks is what it’s all about. The first of many guest contributions in the book is from Camille Vidal, the OG mindful cocktail mixologist from the UK, who discusses what a mindful cocktail is. She says “alcohol isn’t what makes a cocktail special. It’s the place, the atmosphere, the balance of flavour, the person you’re sharing the cocktail with…”. We couldn’t agree more.

In Mindful Mixology, Brown has essentially created a lifestyle guide filled with delectable drinks and thought-provoking interstitials that anyone at any place on the drinking spectrum can relate to.

Mindful Mixology is published through Rizzoli Books in the U.S and Penguin Random House Canada. It’s available through Amazon.ca for $49.75 as well as online through the usual book sellers including Indigo in Canada.