Mixed Drinks

dechowj

What is your favorite low calorie mixed drink? I would really love to have a nice alcoholic drink every once in a while without it having more calories than my entire meal.

tinkerbellang83

Flavoured vodka (Raspberry Absolut or Stoli are faves of mine) with soda and a wedge of fresh lime
Spiced Rum/Bourbon & diet coke with a splash of root beer cordial (root beer not readily available were I live).
Rum with diet ginger beer


Basically switch out sugary mixers for diet versions or soda water. Sugar free cordials can also add a little flavour to white spirits too if you're not too fond on plain soda water.

janejellyroll

Diet soda mixed with whatever spirit you prefer is always pretty reasonable. If you like fruity stuff, Mio and water added to vodka, rum, or tequila can be good. Ocean Spray diet cranberry juice is just 5 calories a serving if you like a vodka cranberry. In the summer, I'll have gin or vodka with diet tonic.

Basically anything where you can limit the sugar. Most high calorie cocktails are that way due to the mixers, not the alcohol itself (which is going to be about 60-90 calories an ounce usually).

If you don't like diet soda or juicy stuff and want to enjoy the taste of the alcohol more, maybe try a martini (like a basic gin martini, not one of the newer sugary concoctions) or a Manhattan. Both are basically liquor and vermouth (the first dry, the second sweet) and they're also going to be reasonable from a calorie POV.

tinkerbellang83

Suppose I forgot to mention light beers/ciders too, you can also get a lot of low sugar flavoured cider, hard sodas and stuff too compared to what was available a few years ago.

NorCal_Kindred_Spirit

Use Torani sugar free syrup. They test wonderful. No calories. No sugar. No farting.

https://shop.torani.com/Sugar-Free-Syrups/c/Torani@SugarFreeSyrups?utm_origin=sitelinks&gclid=CjwKCAiAsaOBBhA4EiwAo0_AnG7B5pT3MjaRADFbr8wcLaGHRYdseyV58WPguwvqGO8Q6EzsvFClRhoCUjUQAvD_BwE

Speakeasy76

Echoing what the others have said, you can add a shot of whatever liquor you like to a flavored carbonated water (like Bubly) or diet soda.

As a side note, I would NOT recommend the Jordan's skinny syrup drink mixes. My husband got me a set of 6 for Christmas, and they are NOT good. They contain sucralose and they are just way too sickly/fake-sweet for me. I feel like these type of diet/"healthy" versions of foods (like protein powders) aimed towards women feel they need to make them super sweet-tasting for us to like them.

MsWax

1/2 cup frozen watermelon + 2oz tequilla + 0.5ish oz lime juice mixed in blender

cwolfman13

Moscow Mule with zero sugar Reed's Extra Ginger Beer. I cut way back and went AF for 90 days and only drink very occasionally now but that's always been one of my favorites. I make them virgin now quite often for weekend afternoons poolside. I always liked mine with a Tbsp of simple syrup and fresh mint sprigs which isn't traditional, but I find it tasty. For virgin I sub the vodka with club soda.

cymande1961

I have discovered (because I too love a good cocktail!) that Sparkling Ice flavored waters make incredibly good mixers! I've come up with calorie-lite (as much as a cocktail is going to be, anyhow, since a teaspoon of flavored simple syrups is something I enjoy) Moscow Mules, Dark and Stormy and Paloma recipes using those. Still in the discovery phase, but Sparkling Ice has about 20 flavors so I'm optimistic! I also make rum and coke using my Soda Stream and vanilla cola flavored syrup instead of my former go-to Pepsi. The cola is so many fewer calories, that way.

mountainchica

Zevia makes some nice zero sugar, zero calorie mixers like tonic water and ginger beer. They also have several sodas that work well as mixers.

casuzyq

If you like Tonic, FeverTree makes a tasty naturally light Tonic water, 30 calories per serving.. Mixes well with vodka or gin. I think they also make a diet tonic, but I personally do not like diet tonic, because I taste the artificial sweeteners.

AnnPT77

This may be a minority report, but I'll throw it out here since I don't think anyone's mentioned it. I'm not a huge fan of sweet drinks in the first place, so at reduced calories I'm enjoying a spirit of choice with a dash or two of bitters, and some plain sparkling water. Depending on the specific bitters, a citrus wedge or something like that can be a good add, too. Very refreshing, IMO.

These days, it's not just the traditional Angostura bitters. There are all kinds of flavor profiles of various types available: Citrus or other fruit, herbals, sweet spices (the kind of thing you think of as going in baked goods, cinnamon and such), even vegetal notes.

I'm (sigh) running out of a wonderful smoked apple chickory bitters that's no longer on the market, and working on bottles of lime bitters and cucumber bitters (I love cucumbers!). I found bunches of different types on Amazon, for example. Since you only use mere drops in a drink, they go a long way, and the calories are truly negligible for quite a lot of flavor.

Another option, only slightly higher in calories, is "shrubs" or vinegar-based mixers. Some people think that sounds awful, but if you like beverages with a little tartness, these might surprise/please you. McClary Brothers makes an Apple Pie drinking vinegar as a mixer, for example, that you'd use an ounce in a cocktail, for 35 calories, and it has a nice apple flavor with the usual pie-spice notes in it. They have others (lemon/ginger, pineapple/fennel, cherry, etc.), and other companies make similar products. As a category, these are usually fruity, tart, and lightly sweet.

georgieamber2

Any spirit with a zero / sugar free mixer. My go to is gin and slimline tonic, gin/vodka with lime soda, a light bottled beer or just one half pint then start on spirits and mixer. A small glass of prosecco too is a low calorie option.
My treat is a bottled beer like an amstel x