How to Drink Your Way Out of Dry January

It's the last weekend in dry January, which means it's the perfect weekend to slowly ease back into drinking with some low-proof drinks. This is good advice. Promise.

adonis negroni sbagliato old hickory

It’s cold outside. And let’s face it: you’re done with all the carrot juice. You don’t even like carrot juice. You know why? Because carrot juice is not good.  

But you do like Negroni Sbagliatos.

It’s the last weekend in dry January, which means it’s the perfect weekend to slowly ease back into drinking with some low-proof drinks. This is good advice. Promise.

These “distance” cocktails, as bartender Greg Best calls them, will do exactly what it sounds like: they will help you go the distance.

Consider the Negroni Sbagliato. Its sbagliato addendum translates to “incorrect” or “mistaken,” but it’s happy gaffe. Essentially a Negroni that swaps gin for prosecco, it’s the day-drinking (cleanse-easing) version of its brawnier cousin.

For those craving a Manhattan or an Old Fashioned, the Old Hickory is a low-proof drink that sacrifices none of the rich, warming flavors that typify a boozy, stirred cocktail. This version from Maxwell Britten of Brooklyn’s Maison Premiere, is a combination of sweet and dry vermouth, plus a few dashes of orange bitters and is—in an extra nod toward NOLA—kicked up with the addition of Peychaud’s.

The Adonis takes a similar approach, but subs fino sherry in place of dry vermouth and sticks exclusively to orange bitters. It’s one of the finest sherry-based aperitif drinks in the canon, and despite its low proof, its a winter drink to its core.

And lastly, if you’re thinking to hell with easing off the wagon: Eggnog, because what could be more of an appropriate adieu to the January detox?