FOOD & DRINK: There must be an alternative to orange juice

When alcohol's not an option - you're driving or just don't like it - these brews will foster the party spirit.

ANYONE WITH a grain (or even a grape) of sense avoids alcohol if required to drive later, but there are other reasons to dodge the demon drink. Some people have no wish to repeat last night's performance. Others have problems with dependency, health or weight. Then there are those who feel alcohol's effects are disagreeable. I find it hard to believe, but I understand that some people have yet to find an alcoholic drink with a taste that they enjoy.

The greater problem, surely, is finding a virginal brew that is at all moreish. Non-alcoholic wines and beers usually taste dead or sticky. One reason for this is that they are not properly fermented. Another is that alcohol, though seemingly tasteless, contributes to drinks a peppery note, the absence of which is quite noticeable.

Why do people drink these unnatural potions? People do not want to be seen as party-poopers and these substitutes do look like wine and beer. For such timid folk, ready to appease a macho peer-group, there is always sparkling water, or tonic, with ice and a slice. Who can tell, without scrutinising it for juniper oiliness, that it is not a gin-and-tonic? True, some idiot might secretly add vodka or gin, but the same is true if you ask for tomato or orange juice. With luck, your taste-buds will be sharp enough to notice.

Tomato or vegetable juice, with a splash of Worcestershire sauce, is a pleasant enough drink. Among ready-mixed versions, the lightly spiced Big Tom (pounds 2.29, Oddbins) is richer than V8 juice (99p, widely available): note the macho names.

So what's wrong with fresh orange juice? Served in a hefty tumbler and with plenty of ice, absolutely nothing. But served warm in a small glass, it is deeply off-putting. After one or two, such drinks become sickly. Beyond the stage of initial refreshment or sustenance, sweet drinks are for young, unseasoned palates. Grown-up tastes demand something drier.

Among the flavoured waters on offer, I have enjoyed Tesco's Lemon and Elderflower Spring Water (39p) - it tastes as it sounds. A company called Bottle Green are using the French term presse to describe a range of waters "with fruit". In deference to St Delia, I tried the Cranberry Presse (the label also mentioned blackcurrants and rowanberries). I could manage one as a substitute for red wine, but two might be just too sweet. Similarly, Spa and Fruit Lemon-Cactus is a syrupy, carbonated drink, with vegetable extracts and sundry additives. (Around pounds 1.50 and 45p respectively.)

Fentimans Victorian Lemonade, with additional ingredients like juniper, has a much drier finish but, being brewed, has up to 0.5 per cent alcohol. Their Ginger Beer seems more grown up, but has the same drawback for total abstainers (95p each, Oddbins).

The most adult of these innocent drinks is Ame Celebration in a stylised champagne bottle with an opaque matte finish and a straw tag that would suit sake. I opened this with scepticism and was rewarded with a champagne- plus pop and a soaking. I found that the flavour of chardonnay grapes survives, and that the non-alcoholic stickiness was well masked by the extracts of lime flower and jasmine. There was also some dryness from added gentian. If I were banned from drinking alcohol (and survived), I would probably settle for this (pounds 3.99, Sainsbury).

A more bordeaux-like bottle, but frosted, with a whimsically simple graphic of an English apple, contains the decidedly un-French Saxon 1050 from Appletree Hill. This date was quoted in the Domesday Book for the brewing of a beverage with apples. Saxon is actually a pure juice, made entirely from the great English variety, Cox's orange pippins, in this instance grown in Suffolk. It has a lovely cloudy earthiness and acidity: if I were an abstainer, I would serve this with a good English Cheddar after dinner.

Chegworth Valley English Apple Juice has a bottle and label that might suit a vin de pays, and a richly fruity, but nicely acidic, blend of Cox's and Bramleys produced by the inappropriately named Water Lane Farm. A drier-tasting, very refreshing, pressing - Cox Medium-Sweet - comes from Ringden Farm, in Flimwell, East Sussex. Each of these farms offers a range of apple and pear varietals.

For non-purists, Appletree Hill's Victorian Garden Apple and Rhubarb Juice might be an option. With its sweetish finish, I might save it for the crumble course. Coppella's Apple with an elderflower infusion is brighter and blander, but acceptable enough (pounds 1.79, widely available).

At this point, I yearned to drink something that was really bad for me. The Jones Soda Company answered my call with a Green Apple Soda that was an emerald colour worthy of a mad professor's laboratory. After that, it was but a short step to Jones Blue Bubble Gum or Bugjuice.com Soda (99p each, Jerry's Home Stores). They all tasted a lot like sugar. On balance, I prefer to poison myself with alcohol. I can't wait to get back to beer from Belgian Buddhist monks, or Scotch whisky finished in herring barrels.

For stockists and mail order: Appletree Hill (01449 612 0202); Big Tom and James White apple juices (01473 890111); Chegworth Valley, Water Lane Farm, Maidstone, Kent (01622 859 272); Ringden Farm, Flimwell, East Sussex (01580 879385)