Low and no

Non-alcoholic drinks used to get a page on cordial shelf life, if they got one at all. The single good instinct in that was that a soft drink should be dressed to the same standard as everything else. It has since become a category in its own right.

Non-alcoholic drinks are one of the fastest-growing parts of the trade, and the useful detail is that the overwhelming majority of people buying them also buy alcohol. This isn't an abstinence category. It's people alternating, or driving, or not drinking tonight, and they resent being handed a lemonade.

Alcohol does three things a soft drink has to replace: it carries aroma, it adds body, and it provides a slight burn that stops a drink turning sickly sweet. Miss all three and you've made a cordial.

• Acid. The most important lever. Lemon or lime, or a splash of vinegar where you want the sourness without the citrus flavour. Without it a zero-proof drink is flat and sweet.
• Bitterness. Strong tea, coffee, grapefruit, chinotto, or non-alcoholic aperitifs. This is what makes a drink read as adult.
• Tannin and body. Over-brewed black tea is the cheapest trick behind the bar and does a lot of the work.
• Heat. Ginger, chilli, pink peppercorn, or a couple of dashes of Tabasco - which brings its own acid with it. Stands in for the bite the alcohol is not providing.
• Salt. A pinch, stirred in rather than sprinkled on top so it does not land on one mouthful. Bars that use it a lot keep a saline solution to dose it evenly, but that is a refinement rather than the point. Lifts everything, the same way it does in food.

There's now a real shelf of non-alcoholic spirits, aperitifs and even bitters. Quality varies enormously and price doesn't track it. They're worth having for the guest who wants the ritual of a Negroni without the alcohol, and they're not required. Tea, citrus and a good tonic will get most of the way there.