With the silly season almost upon us, we thought it timely to have a chat about that most frivolous of bevvies – the cocktail.
Animal products make their way into cocktails via ingredients such as cream, honey, or egg white; via additives such as carmine (from cochineal) for colour; or by being to produce the base alcohol. This typically happens during filtration, which may use things like isinglass (from fish), gelatin (typically cows), egg whites, and bone char.
The good news is that *most* hard liquors (think whisky, bourbon, rum, gin, tequila) are vegan friendly. Because they are distilled, they don’t need to go through the filtration process, and because they are neat, they typically contain no animal products.
The bad news, however, is that this isn’t ‘one rule fits all’. for example, while Campari is vegan, some Campari lookalikes still use carmine (that vivid red colour). Tragically, the iconic Martini vermouth uses gelatin for fining, and some vodkas are refined using bone char (Bone Black is one to avoid), so it pays to double-check. FYI, Grey Goose is proudly vegan – just ask Lizzo!
Some of the cocktails you’ll want to avoid include anything with a non-vegan base spirit (eg Baileys Irish Cream) or those that use honey (e.g. Chambord), egg or dairy. No White Russians welcome here. Wine-based cocktails, like Aperol spritz, may be a problem depending on the brand of prosecco. So, amaretto Sour is a no-no (yes, that sound was my vegan heartbreaking), as is a whiskey sour, bloody Mary (thanks to Worcestershire sauce), grasshopper, brandy alexander, and, unsurprisingly, eggnog.
Still confused? Us too. So we highly recommend the website Barnivore, which lists the vegan-friendly status of pretty much every alcoholic tipple under the sun.