Martha Stewart's Go-To Mocktail Is Perfect For Ringing In The New Year

The most festive time of the year is here, with gatherings galore that tend to involve raising a glass or two in holiday cheer. And this all culminates on New Year's Eve. With both wellness-driven moderation and high-quality, interesting non-alcoholic options on the rise, many of us are looking into the best alcohol-free drinks for New Year's — whether for ourselves, our guests, or both. Parties in 2025 really must have at least one or two good non-alcoholic options to make all guests feel welcome, and those beverages ideally won't be afterthoughts like juices or sodas. Turning a cocktail into a mocktail is more than just removing the booze: You still want those offerings to feel celebratory and elevated.

Luckily, the queen of hosting has us covered. Just as she does with nearly every other facet of entertaining, Martha Stewart has plenty of genius tips for making cocktails — and the same goes for mocktails. She shared with NPR a recipe for a spirit-free cocktail that feels worthy of a midnight countdown. It's a pomegranate tea, made with POM Wonderful pomegranate extract, sparkling water, and slices of orange, lemon, and lime; you can also optionally add orange juice and ginger ale. Pomegranates are in season during the holidays, which is why their brilliant tartness and vibrant hue have become associated with festive drinks. Sparkling water adds New Year's Eve-esque effervescence, while ginger ale contributes warming spice, and citrus flavors balance the profile with bright acidity and sweetness. 

If you're new to booze-free adult beverages, it's important to know the basics behind building good mocktails. Just because there's no alcohol doesn't mean a mocktail shouldn't be thoughtfully composed. You still want the balance and complexity that you'd find in a cocktail. Think about good flavor pairings and interesting flavor contradictions. Make sure you temper sweetness with an element of acidity or sourness, and/or bitterness. Mouthfeel is often underrated in how important it is, too — alcohol tends to have a bit more body to it. You can mimic that fuller, silkier texture with syrups or purées, and or liven the drink up with carbonation. Martha Stewart's pomegranate tea is a perfect example of mingling sweetness with acidity, adding bubbles, and even replicating the warming effect of alcohol with ginger.

There are endless possibilities for experimenting and riffing on this kind of booze-free beverage formula. Think about ingredients that can elevate your mocktails, like botanicals, additional fruits, spices, teas, bitters, and even fancy garnishes and rimmed glasses. For Stewart's particular recipe, you could incorporate an upgraded DIY simple syrup made with berries or some of those citrus elements. You could add some bitterness by adding some actual tea — a raspberry iced tea would work well. There are also plenty of spices you could add to your syrup that work well with pomegranate and citrus, like black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, rosemary, and allspice.