The pubs are open. Nature, as they say, is healing.
But after the last year, a pint is the last thing that some Edinburgh residents want. Lockdown saw many of us re-evaluating our relationship with alcohol - where do we go if we don’t want to go back to the way things were before?
Luckily in Edinburgh, options for your personal new normal have never been more varied.
Restaurants are increasingly embracing the mocktail - both Hawksmoore and Dishoom have extensive non-alcoholic cocktail menus that go far beyond a Shirley Temple. Dishoom’s Dry Old Fashioned features smoked demerara sugar, orange bitters, cayenne and orange peel and Hawksmoor’s Sour Cherry America, made with Æcorn Aperitifs Bitter & Aromatic, their in-house preserved cherry juice and soda, sound good enough to tempt even the most hardened drinker.
For all our latest coronavirus news you can follow our live blog
For those who prefer their refreshments al fresco, off licenses are catching on to the no-booze trend thanks to some savvy breweries.
Drinking in public may not be legal, but sitting in the Meadows with a beer is a time-honoured tradition for many Edinburgh residents. If you want to avoid the fine, low alcohol beers - once the staple of the designated driver or someone trying not to let on that they’re pregnant - are having, as they say, a moment.
When Edinburgh-based Sonja Mitchell established Jump Ship Brewing in December 2019, she was her own ideal customer - a beer aficionado who was tired of dealing with hangovers and wanted a good quality booze-free version.
“It very much came from my desire to cut back on the alcohol - I love drinking beer, but I couldn’t take the hangovers anymore with a young family.” That set her off on a journey to see if she could replicate the complex flavours of a pint, but minus the headaches and constant need to wee.
The result? Yardarm, a crisp lager brewed with Citra and Styrian Bobek, and Flying Colours, a pale ale with a fruity kick and a colour so gorgeous it’s almost a shame to drink it.
The bar and club scene has always been an integral part of the LGBT community’s socialising - the Stonewall riots that kicked off a new era of queer activism started when New York’s Stonewall bar was raided by the police, after all. Whilst that’s given us drag, Madonna and more than one ill-advised drunken hook-up, it means that people who don’t drink feel increasingly isolated by a community that’s supposed to be welcoming.
Enter the sober and proud Greenwood Cafe, one of Bruntsfield’s latest additions. It offers a place for people of all ages, genders and sexualities to socialise, check out their regular art exhibitions and eat brownies so good that you’ll forget alcohol even exists.
Oskar Hansen - also known as his drag alter ego, the tarot-reading Mystika Glamoor - set up the Greenwood in 2020 after realising how few spaces catered to LGBT people who want an alternative to the hard drinking, hard dancing scene.
To receive one WhatsApp message a day with Edinburgh Live's headlines, as well as breaking news alerts, text NEWS to 07899067815. Then add the number to your contacts as 'Edinburgh Live'.
Throughout June, a portion of every sale of their iced lemon and mint tea will go to LGBT Youth Scotland so you can feel doubly virtuous, and if you’re tempted to turn up your nose at the sound of their vegan and gluten-free tiramisu - well, since it sells out in record time you probably won’t have the chance to change your opinion. #yourloss
Whether you’re fully tee-total or just want to give your liver a break, the possibilities of a sober night out in Edinburgh are endless. And after a year of staying home, who wants a night out they can’t remember?
.png?w=600)
