Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Food & Drink

If you’re not ready for Dry January, give these 3 low-calorie cocktails a shake (or stir)

These low-calorie cocktails won't ruin your fitness goals

By
Cocktail outside
Vlad Tchompalov / Unsplash

Dry January isn’t for everyone. Perhaps your New Year’s resolution wasn’t to give up all alcohol for a month, but instead, to jump-start a year of healthy living. Maybe you’re going to join a gym (and hopefully actually continue going after this month), eat healthier (no more stops at Mickey D’s for fries), and drink healthier. Yes, that’s right. You don’t have to completely give up alcohol to live a healthier lifestyle in 2024.

Sure, alcohol itself isn’t great for your health and should be enjoyed in moderation. But the real carbohydrates and extra calories come from heavy beers and ridiculous, over-the-top indulgent ingredients in your favorite cocktails. Among the most caloric mixed drinks are the boozy Long Island iced tea, margarita, pina colada, white Russian, and Mai Tai.

Recommended Videos

Lucky for you, while you’re enjoying your booze in moderation, you can also still imbibe in a cocktail or two. There are ways to make your mixed drinks healthier. Below, you’ll find three of our favorite low-calorie cocktails. They are boozy, flavorful, and won’t destroy your healthy New Year’s resolutions.

Gin and tonic
Laure Noverraz / Unsplash

Gin and tonic

When it comes to simple, refreshing, low-calorie cocktails, it doesn’t get much better than the classic gin and tonic. This highball cocktail is simply made with gin and tonic water. You can add a squeeze of lime and a lime wedge for added flavor and garnish, but this flavorful drink is as easy and healthy as mixed drinks come.

While its origins are mysterious (like with many cocktails), many believe it has its origins with the British military in the 1800s. The English were using tonic water with quinine to ward off diseases, and it only made sense to add gin to make it more palatable.

What you’ll need to make the gin and tonic recipe

  • 2 ounces of London dry gin
  • 4 ounces of tonic water
  • 1 lime wedge for garnish

Gin and tonic recipe steps

  1. Fill a highball, balloon glass, or pint glass with ice
  2. Add the gin
  3. Top it with tonic water
  4. Add a squeeze of lime and drop in the wedge
  5. Gently stir and enjoy
Vodka soda
Mathias Tonnesson / Unsplash

Vodka soda

If you’re looking for a boozy, flavorful, low-calorie drink to celebrate a healthier 2024, look no further than the classic vodka soda. This simple drink is made with vodka and unflavored club soda. But if you’re feeling a little wacky, you can choose flavored soda water, seltzer, or sparkling water instead. Like with the G & T, this drink gets added flavor from a citrus squeeze. In this case, though, it’s lemon.

While it might seem like the vodka soda is a modern drink; its origins can be traced back to the late 1700s. This was when Schweppes first introduced soda water to the masses. They decided to mix it with alcohol. Why wouldn’t they? If vodka isn’t your thing, then simply switch to Scotch whisky, tequila, or your favorite spirit because the calories will be similar.

What you’ll need to make the vodka soda recipe

  • 2 ounces of vodka
  • Topper of club soda
  • 1 lemon wedge

Vodka soda recipe steps

  1. In a pint or Tom Collins glass, add ice
  2. Pour in the vodka and top it with soda water
  3. Squeeze a lime wedge and add it for garnish
Bloody Mary
Johann Trasch / Unsplash

Bloody Mary

You might look at a bright red-hued Bloody Mary and not instantly realize it’s a reasonably low-calorie, healthy drink. The base is vodka. The rest of this brunch staple is made up of a variety of ingredients based on who is making it. They include tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, horseradish, black pepper, and various herbs and spices. It can be spicier based on taste. It’s the best way to get our daily intake of vegetables, in our opinion.

Like with many drinks, its genesis is up for debate. Some believe this drink was created by a bartender named Fernand Petiot in 1934 at the King Cole Room in New York. Another story says that it was named for a bartender named (you guessed it) Mary at a bar called The Bucket of Blood in Chicago. Some also believe that the name comes from Queen Mary Tudor of England. Regardless of where and when the drink was created, it remains one of the most popular breakfast cocktails ever conceived.

What you’ll need to make the Bloody Mary recipe

  • 1.5 ounces of vodka
  • 3 ounces of tomato juice
  • 2-3 dashes of lemon juice
  • 1-2 dashes of hot sauce
  • 1-2 dashes of cracked black pepper
  • 1 celery stalk

Bloody Mary recipe steps

  1. In a pint glass, add ice
  2. Add the hot sauce, lemon juice, and cracked black pepper
  3. Add the vodka and tomato juice
  4. Stir gently and add a celery stalk
Clear cocktail
Johann Trasch / Unsplash

Advice on low-calorie cocktails

When mixing together “healthy” cocktails this January, remember that while you can add lower-calorie ingredients and not go over the top with garnishes, the real key is moderation. Make one or two nice flavorful cocktails and enjoy them.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Christopher Osburn
Christopher Osburn
Writer
Christopher Osburn is a food and drinks writer located in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. He's been writing professional
Bourbon snifters: What they’re good for, which bourbon you should drink from them, and more
Why you should have bourbon snifters, and what to drink from them
Snifter

If you’re new to bourbon, you probably pour your favorite whiskey into a rocks glass with or without ice and sip it while you binge-watch the newest show du jour on Netflix and call it good. And while that’s all well and good, as we aren’t here to tell anyone how to imbibe whiskey, you might not be enjoying it as much as you could be. That’s to say that there are whiskey glasses designed to elevate and heighten your whiskey-tasting experience.

Don’t believe us? Just take your classic rocks glass, for example. It’s fairly uniform and unexciting. It’s designed for cocktails. That’s because when you drink an Old Fashioned. Sazerac, or Whiskey Sour the experience is all about the various flavors the ingredients (when combined with whiskey) create.

Read more
The drinks pro at the Four Seasons Oahu shares his twist on 5 classic cocktails
If you can't make it to the Four Seasons in Oahu, you can at least drink like you're there
A working bartender.

When it comes to classic cocktail recipes like the Negroni, rules can be broken. Sure, you have to honor the original but without a little added creativity, it's just another drink.

We reached out to Mike Milligan for some twists on some classics. He's the bar manager at Four Seasons Oahu at Ko Olina, on the island's stunning west coast. He not only offered a handful of great recipes -- ones patrons adore while sipping at the bar at Noe -- but some priceless tips too. In terms of the best resort drinks, the following deserve a spot towards the top of the list.

Read more
You need to start adding beer to your waffle batter – here’s why
Add beer to your waffle recipe (it's delicious!)
Waffles on a plate

Belgium is something of a headliner when it comes to cuisine. So many of the most glorious foods we love to indulge in originate from this beautiful little European country. Some of the world's best chocolate and most exquisite beers come from Belgium, making it one of our favorite countries. But then you throw french fries and waffles into the mix, and Belgium very quickly becomes the mecca of the most adored foods world. While we can go around for days about which of these culinary contributions we love most, there's room to adore them all. But on a lazy Sunday morning, there just isn't anything better than a perfectly golden, light, fluffy, crispy, buttery Belgian waffle.
True Belgian waffles are unique in a few ways. Firstly, they usually call for the added step of beating egg whites separately, then folding them into the batter in lieu of simply mixing whole eggs in all at once. This incorporates air into the batter and gives Belgian waffles their signature light and airy texture. They also tend to have a bit more sugar than other waffles, making them slightly sweeter. But our very favorite mark of an authentic Belgian waffle is that they're yeasted, often with Belgium's favorite beverage - beer.
Using beer in waffle batter is a stroke of genius for a few reasons. The bubbles in the carbonation, much like the beaten egg whites, will create a heavenly light fluffiness. The yeast in the beer will give the waffles a much more complex flavor and gorgeous texture.
This is our very favorite Belgian waffle recipe.

Beer waffle recipe
Every waffle iron is different, but these waffles are meant to be perfectly crisp and beautifully brown, so be sure to cook them long enough to see those golden edges.
Ingredients

Read more