9 Easy Holiday Mocktail Recipes For Entertaining Guests (Or Just Yourself)

Since they make nonalcoholic and boozy ginger beer, ginger beer-based recipes are some of the easiest to make into mocktails on the fly. All The Healthy Things’ bevvie is bubbly, fruity, and slightly herby — and it looks so stinking cute with “frosted” cranberries on top.

I love it when a mocktail recipe makes up for its lack of booze with an overabundance of fun in another form. In Averie Cooks’ recipe for caramel apple cider, it’s a homemade caramel sauce all around the rim — I’m in. You could totally use store-bought sauce to save time, but if you have to simmer the cider anyway, it might be fun to try.

If you’re making drinks for guests who don’t mind something super sweet (kids will lose it for this stuff), you’ve got to make Princess Pinky Girl’s Grinch punch. It’s a bright green blend of sherbet, green Hawaiian punch, Sprite, and juice, so it will hurt many people’s teeth. But sweet toothed friends, this one’s for you.

Holiday party snuck up on you and you’re in charge of drinks? Whip up this super easy holiday punch from Damn Delicious. All you have to do is mix together some ginger ale, pineapple juice, and cranberry juice, and load it up with some fresh fruits before serving.

You don’t have to dive into chocolate or caramel apple everything for the holidays if you’re usually a fruity beverage lover. Cookie + Kate’s sangria blends together beautiful blood orange juice and bright red pomegranates for a fresh but festive mocktail you’ll want to make again and again. Simply sub out the prosecco for sparkling grape juice or a fizzy water flavor of your choosing.

Want a more decadent drink for a movie marathon at home? You have to try Princess Pinky Girl’s apple cider float recipe. It’s basically like a milkshake and apple cider had a baby and then dressed it up in warm, seasonal spices.

Think about how happy you’d be if you showed up at a holiday party and there was a self-serve vat of hot chocolate waiting for you. Well, be the change you wish to see in the world with Princess Pinky Girl’s Crockpot peppermint hot chocolate. While technically not a mocktail in that it’s not imitating a cocktail, a gussied up take on hot chocolate still feels really festive and exciting to try.

This apple cider shrub mocktail from Budget Bytes is the drink if you like a not-so-sweet mocktail that tastes almost like it could be boozy. The drink has a few steps that’ll make you look like a professional bartender, but it’s easy enough that even a first-timer around a cocktail shaker can pull it off. Bonus points: they’re also incredibly cheap to make.

Dirty soda, as a drink category, got plenty of attention this year thanks to the cast of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. So if you need a fun NA drink to serve your reality TV-loving friends, what could be better? Princess Pinky Girl’s recipe will teach you how to get the perfect balance of flavors if it’s your first time wading into dirty soda territory.