Can't Keep My Mouth Shut - Best Alcoholic Drinks For The Festive Season Including Low Carb & Low ABV

Episode Date: December 6, 2021

Fancy having your own home bar cart? Want to know what drinks are the best this festive season to keep the ol' calories low, or even better, low abv? With thanks to The First Pour, I've got you covered!

This podcast contains strong language and discussions about relationships, sex and love. It may not be suitable for younger listeners. This is the Sex in Singapore City podcast and I am Nick Salina. Hi, it's Nick Salina and welcome to my podcast. happy december everyone who is in the festive spirit i know i am talking of spirits this podcast is based on alcohol and it is called the best alcoholic drinks for the festive season including low carb and low abv so what i want to talk about today which i feel is very apt is how we can drink alcohol during the christmas period which most of us do let loose

but not get absolutely smashed that perhaps we wake up the next day next to someone we don't even remember or how we manage to drink merrily through christmas into the new year but not put on loads of weight. We all know alcohol, sadly, is full of sugar and carbs and other horrendous stuff that's bad for us. But also, you know, we love it. So what are we to do? Luckily, out on the market now, there are low carb options and there are also non-alcoholic options for those who don't drink, including non-alcoholic wines and spirits. So we've got a whole load to get through today. Before I begin, I'd like to firstly thank the sponsor of this podcast, which is the Thirst Pour, a homegrown gin, spirits, alcohol, and non-alcoholic beverage merchant right here

in Singapore that prides itself in curating the unique, the unusual, and the absolutely delicious alcoholic beverages and mixes that can be delivered direct to your door. So how did I find out about the first spot I first found out through my hearty friend Google so basically I've always wanted a home bar cart and if you guys are on my Instagram at nixalina n-i-x-a-l-i-n-a you will see that I have the most beautiful bar cart now it's just something I've wanted forever I feel very bougie and I finally have the space big enough now where I've moved in with my fiance to have my own bar cart so I ordered this gorgeous one off it's only off Amazon lots of people have messaged me about it as well where the actual bar cart came from I assembled it myself because

apparently my dude can't handle flat pack like okay thanks and then I was like right what do I fill it up with I want alcohol but I didn't just want to go to the local supermarket right I just wanted different stuff I wanted something that I haven't tasted before and I wanted like really I guess quality spirits for my bar cart. I was very particular. I'm very excited about this. So I took to Google and I found the first pour, which I shall call TFP for short. And I got in touch with one of the awesome guys who runs it called Derek, and he wisely advised me on how to first build the bar cart. So he's like a good starting point. If you're going to do one at home, of course this helps, is to have at least one bottle from the core list of spirits,

a one gin, one rum, one vodka, one whiskey. I also knew that I'd be throwing lots of December parties for my friend, so I wanted to make sure I had a lot of everything that people would have. But I just didn't want your standard gins, you know, I wanted to go a bit further as an example. So I'm going to start with the gins that I curated. I firstly went with Warner's. These guys, Tom and Tina Warner, they're located in Northamptonshire in the UK. And all of the botanicals of their gins are grown on their own farm. What? So it's literally fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh. I opted for the rhubarb gin from the Warner's range. They have some really wonderful flavors. And I just like, yeah, let's give a rhubarb a vibe. And it's so

good. And when I mean it's so good, as in I had to fight my partner to leave a rhubarb gin tasting for me so I could actually have it. And then I had to order him another bottle. That's where we're at with this. Hornet gins also have on the first pour site, we've got raspberry flavors, we've got lemon balm, we've got honeybee elderflower, and then I've also got the standard dry gin um london's dry gin i love the different flavors i love the raspberries and the rhubarbs um the rhubarb particularly has like a cardamom and sweet orange note and it tastes delicious with ginger ale what did you not say tonic no i did not yes it's lovely with soda and yes it's lovely with tonic but ginger ale rhubarb gin just give it a go i'm aware by the way that ginger ale

is quite high in sugar. So we're going to come to that portion of the podcast later where we look at the low carb options and low BBs. So the next one I opted for in the gins is, of course, Tangeling Gin. Singapore's first made, ever first made gin in Singapore. So basically, you got four dudes out of that. And now today, it's like one of the most awarded alcoholic spirits in Singapore. Brewed in the heart of Dempsey. Tangerine gin has some wonderful different flavors as well. They've got orchid. They've got the standard Singapore.

They've got black powder. I liked the standard one, the tangerine Singapore gin. There's notes of ginger, mandarin, and orange blossoms. And it's just so deep and delicious that you don't really need a heavy mixer with this one. so i recommend a light tonic and my final gin of choice firstly was for the bottle i'm not gonna lie because when i was building my barber car i was like it's gotta look pretty um is the mirabu dry rose gin am i pronouncing that right mirabu mirabu i know that the first four are gonna be like, you said it wrong. Mirabeau. Anyway, it's a stunning dry rose gin made in the province

and it has the most floral and fresh citrus and spice notes to it. It's just delicious. It's absolutely stunning. It really captures the spirit of the south of France and if you serve it with some tonic and rosemary it's so bloody good this was another bottle where I got it for the bar cart assuming it's a pink rose gin so it's mine I had to fight the partner for it um yeah there's a lot of alcohol fighting here he is Australian and he lives it up to the name of drinking Aussie drinks there we go so I had to then quickly order another bottle because I think we're on our third bottle now that's how much he loves this particular gin the bottle's beautiful the taste of it is delicious it's probably one of my favorite new gins and i would never have found this honestly

if i hadn't gone to the first ball these guys are the ones that introduced me to this particular gin and i was like yeah i'm here for it so that's my collection of gins so the next one um i'm going to move on to is vodka I'm not a big vodka drinker even though I'm aware I know that it's one of the lowest carb drinks you can have so if you want to lose weight or you don't want to yeah be as I guess bloated as alcohol gives you you know everyone says vodka and slimline soda vodka and tonic like that's your baseline my partner loves vodka I'm still not a big fan but I did want to have a bottle so i basically said to derek look i'm not overly a fahey with vodkas and he um helped me decide on copper horse which as its name is a beautiful rose copper bottle as well you can see

it on on my instagram so it's really pretty as far as vodka bottles go for the home barker but it's also actually really delicious it's kind of like creamy i know it sounds really weird to say but it's there is a creamy texture to this vodka um and it's clean with little hints of wheat as i just said you serve it with soda or tonic and a lime wedge or lemon whatever you want um so that's my yeah my one bowl of vodka i will branch out but i'm gonna leave that to the other half to order as for the rum okay this was a wild card i've got to be honest this made me sound so cheap and tacky but i love malibu i bloody love malibu malibu and coke malibu and pineapple malibu and cranberry when i why am i putting on this voice do you know i tell you why because

it was when i was 18 and i went to one of those tacky islands like magaluf or shagaluf or chavos you know like Malia that was it went to Malia on a girl's holiday like whoo 18 way go wild and all I drank was Malibu and coke thinking I was the shit so that was my only rum experience I don't really drink rum beyond that and I'm on the first pours website and I see this Kraken gin rum and I was like oh okay I've never heard of Kraken before genuinely never heard of it before but the bottle looks cool as hell there's this massive kraken octopus on it so sure and i go to at the first port i'm like guys what do you think and they're like yeah cool like it's a good choice um as for the note of it itself the sweetness comes from the caribbean molluses it's like

spicy deep and rich but then there's hints of like vanilla toffee apples and nutmeg and i like this is the first dark rum as well that I've ever gone for oh my god it's my new favorite drink it's my new fucking favorite drink and then when I started talking to my friends like yeah I've got this like thing Kraken for the bar cut everyone knew about it they're like oh my god that's amazing we love that you have you tried it with ginger beer have you tried it with ginger ale have you tried it with cola I was like no I've never tried it before in my life it's fucking great ginger beer and crack and spiced rum is a vibe my friends as is with ginger hour cola honestly it's i i just gonna keep the bar stocked with this and it's fantastic for the festive

season still in singapore you know we still got that tropical heat it gives you that like tropical island vibes you know if you want to pretend you're a pirate at the same time go for it judgment free zone, my friends. Of course, one of the other spirits we all need on a bar cart is whiskey. I say we all need. I don't really like it myself. What? No, I don't. I can't drink it. I struggle. I even struggle like having a Negroni. I'm not, I know that's, you know, not whiskey based, but I just can't do these kind of neat drinks. I'm a very light and fruity and, you know, cocktail kind of woman and or bubbles. But I went to the guys at First Pour and I was like, okay, you know hubby loves a whiskey what do we do and they said hey let's go with Bushmills so this is

basically distilled in Northern Ireland it's a true gem of the Emerald Isles and it represents the best of the Irish Republic and the UK as far as distilled whiskey goes it's famous for being one of the smoother whiskeys available in the market i got the 10 year single malt for the bar cart it's light fruity and has hints of honey and apple tart notes and yeah with whiskey it's usually best served neat apparently i also wanted to get another spirit which is what i one of the reasons why i love this website is that you can just get a whole host of different and unusual bottles from one place I really fancy some Disarano so I don't know if you guys have heard about this but it's an almond liqueur made from apricot kernels and it's like it's a true Italian

classic really and really fantastic cocktails like the Disarano Sour the Amaretto Sour is a lovely cocktail but I like this basically just with Coke there's almond cherry and orange zest notes to liqueur anyway so you just need some ice and some light coke all you can do is spritz style um but yeah coke and disarano is also delicious like that and kraken are way up there now with my favorite drink and obviously finally i've gone through my main spirits but then i wanted bottles of bubbly and wine so i got one prosecco um i got a rose prosecco and it i got it for the bottle but it's actually delicious i also got a red um it's a black cottage number these are of course all found online and then a white wine savignon blanc so they're the core

parts to my bar cart and you can get them like i said all on one website which is fantastic and mixers as well so not only did i rack up all of those i'm heading to the mixer section and can basically get anything I want. So the mixers that they have is all Franklin and Sons, which is a lovely company to stock because it's like hand-picked ingredients. It's very authentic and it's a premium range of tonics and mixers. So I got the Franklin and Sons Cola. I got the Ginger Beer, the Ginger Owl. I got the Tonic Water, the Light Tonic Water. I got the Light Soda. You know what I mean? You get the vibe. You can even get lemon tonic.

I got everything. I was clearly way overexcited here. And I just stocked the bar cart with all of these tiny, beautiful little mixers. They look very, like, I love the vintage look about them, the very retro, old, traditional look. And I love the fact that I can get enough of all the different mixers in one place that goes with whatever alcohol I fancy. so there that's my bar cart stocked right this is what I think is a good mix for the festive season

to get one of each to get different mixes to go with each so you kind of if you're having parties you can cater for the whole crowd right oh and when I say cater for the whole crowd I understand there's you know five packs I had my friends over two of them a couple right for said Christmas party. And we got through a bottle of Kraken, a bottle of the Mirabel gin, a bottle of the Warner's gin, reds, whites. Yeah, the whole thing had gone in like one afternoon. So I was like, cool. Thanks, guys. So let's move on to the part about it being low carb and low ABV. Listen, we all know alcohol makes you put on weight when you drink it in a large consumption. We also know that there's certain alcohols with higher sugar content.

There is a reason there's a thing called a beer belly. If you drink way too many beers, it all comes in your belly and it starts getting massive. I have heard through the grapevine, I refuse to believe it, that champagne and prosecco is full of sugar, which breaks my heart. And I live in a world of ignorance is bliss. but if you want to know you know what's going to make you feel better if you want a Christmas where you don't get that hammered you're you're a happy merry tipsy drunk but you're not blackout level and if you want to know what drinks you can have that's the lighter healthier option of alcoholic beverages the first pour have given me all the information to give to you guys

so for it in general the the gin and vodkas that you have are the best options so like say the london dry gin they have around 50 calories per 25 mil served so these the gins that the first pour stock are pretty much below 70 cal close to 50 cal so for instance warner's rhubarb which is the one i chose which is delicious that is 56 cal per 25 mil served right so you think about that 56 cal for that 25 mil top it with a slimline tonic or slim soda and some ice and you're pretty good to go if you want something that light um vodka would be of course even lighter um kraken rum is actually only 56 cal as well per 25 mil serving i have never been happier because it's heavy and dark looking like it's you know it's a dark

spiced rum you just assume that it's gonna be really bad for you but no so the gins on this site most of them are below 70 the crack and rum is 56 this is of course per 25 mil serving warner's rhubarb gin as i said is 56 cal per 25 mil warner's pink berry and and the double juniper which is non-alcohol which i'll get to later is only 22 cal per 50 mil if you like beer which i do as well i do um old speckled hen is probably the best beer which has fewer calories in it says 260 calories per 500 mil but we kind of tend to drink a lot more of it right so the best way generally if you want to go for this like lower carb is long drinks so spirit mixer light mixer for instance if you go for a full coke you know it's got loads of sugar in it

right we just can't hide that fact so if you can try and switch out the coke for a different kind of mixer if this you know is a big concern of yours then do that just try and watch what you're adding and obviously of course the volume of which you're drinking um the vodkas they're 50 cows per 25 meals um the whiskey and the wines are both 125 cows uh wine is of course 150 mil and whiskey is 50 mil and liqueurs are about 150 cow as well per 50 mil as for the the tonics the genuinely low in calories they range from 15 to 25 cows the ginger ale and the ginger beer a lot more so i think the ginger ale from franklin and sons is about 25 count so if we're going to work this out and like say i want my crack and rum i want a single serve i've got 56 cow a team

with ginger ale which is yum i've got another 25 cow on top so for one drink i have less than 100 cows okay this is good if you drink all night you drink 10 of them then yeah you you that's a lot of calories that's we can't stop the volume here but we can try and limit the intake the general vibe guys is of course the wines and the whiskeys the bubbles they're all a higher cow and you probably should try and just steer clear or perhaps have one glass you know have a have a welcome glass of bubbly have a welcome glass of red but then try and move on to the spirits and light mixtures that will help keep the calories low as for alcohol free yay this is great as well if you're planning on doing dry January which I am don't all laugh at once if you're doing dry

January alcohol-free spirits and mixers are the bomb on the market out there there's also alcohol-free wines there's also alcohol-free beers and because they're alcohol-free the calories are super low as well so Warners have done non-alcohol gins they have the botanical garden spirits version and the pink berry um they're both super low in calories as i said earlier and you get that g and t vibe that like maybe it's a placebo but you have the vibe if you have that with tonic and some some lime and you feel like yeah buzzy but you're not because it's low abv right so this these are just great great options for people who actually just want to steer clear of alcohol altogether you can of course as well just head straight for the franklin and sun soft drinks

just have a ginger ale on its own with ice is delicious as is a cola as is the ginger beer like i didn't have ginger ale on its own until i met my partner and he introduced me to it and then i was like oh my god this drink is a vibe yeah it's pretty high in calories but as i just told you it's 25 cal for one bottle of frankincense that's not too bad there are a lot worse soft drinks out there so these are basically your main bread and butters here for the festive season on what bottles to have um the notes that they have and what mixes that they go with i will also do an accompanying write-up feature for you so you can wait for that and bookmark it and it'll just be very informative written down so it's easy for you to go to and what to pair things with what's low alcohol

alcohol free and what's low carb alcoholic drinks as well i hope i haven't bummed you out too much with the low carb because honestly i'm all about just going out there as we know and enjoying your damn self this year has been particularly harsh on all of us and honestly i think it's time to just let your hair down get in the festive spirit get some festive spirits down you and really enjoy yourselves with your loved ones and your friends and family please do head over to the first pour it's www.thefirstpour.com not thirst first but i like the play on words the first pour and get your orders in there is so much more on this site than i've even managed to talk through today and I've talked through a lot and I'm sure the guys will want to speak to you if you want

some information you can just message them reach out to them on their social media and get in touch with them and say hey like what do I want what's the flavors they will definitely help you create your own home bar cart for Christmas thanks for listening guys that is the end of this episode thanks for listening to the sex and singapore city podcast this episode was produced and hosted by me nick selena and recorded at the splice car studio in singapore i'm available to listen to on spotify apple podcasts google and all major podcast listening apps do subscribe to enjoy a new episode every monday evening please do give me a five-star review it helps other people also find my podcast for more awesome content and features to read you can check out my website sex and

singaporecity.com that's sex and singaporecity.com i'm also on social media simply search at nick selena n-i-x-a-l-i-n-a to find me don't be shy come say hi