A week into January and a new year altogether, many people are dropping bad habits and embarking on healthier new year’s resolutions. Some of those changes involve participating in “dry January,” a term used to describe giving up drinking for the entire month.
For 2024, healthier alternatives are in, such as trying nonalcoholic beverages to sip on. Audacia Elixirs based in Traverse City is offering just that, launching its first nonalcoholic spirits last year, the “Ambrosia” floral berry elixir and “Aurum” citrus botanical elixir.
“I think the majority of the reasons why someone might look to reduce the amount of alcohol or eliminate it completely, whether it’s for a month, night, or in general, is usually something tied to our overall health and wellbeing,” said Loghan Call, one of three cofounders of Audacia Elixirs. “It’s beautiful to see this movement taking flight, but we also want to make sure that the alternatives are in fact truly healthy for us.”
Audacia utilizes only whole ingredients in its hand-crafted elixirs with no added sugars. Each product has a complex flavor base, so drinks can be customized and taken in a million directions. To avoid adding sugar to a drink with an elixir, Call said people can make it as simple as adding sparkling water.
If people crave a similar experience of making a traditional drink and want to get creative with a shaker or mason jar, the versatile elixirs also gives them that freedom, too. Whether you’re going for a more floral forward elixir cocktail or a bitter and spicy one, there are both easy and advanced recipes on Audacia’s website that use the notes of the different ingredients in the elixirs to work off of. Aurum incorporates ingredients like fresh grapefruit and lemon, while Ambrosia has notes of schisandra berries and linden leaf and flower.
“Just like a traditional spirit, there’s unlimited possibilities in terms of how you can work with them (the elixirs). We wanted to blend in some familiar ingredients as well as some potentially newer ingredients that folks might not know as much about. That’s really a passion of my mom with her depth of knowledge of the herbal plant kingdom, reaching deeper into that realm, and to create something original from a flavor profile standpoint,” he said. “I think elixirs allude to this idea that you can create incredible zero-proof cocktails and you can create incredible boozy cocktails with our elixirs as well. You can just use it as a splash in your water or smoothie or water. It’s an elixir in the sense that it’s highly adaptable and designed to nourish your body, mind, and spirit.”
Call explained how it was also a huge part of their passion in creating a non-alcoholic brand to elevate the space and terminology. For instance, he said, it’s part of their brand’s mission to eliminate the word “mocktail,” hence why they refer to their drinks as “elixir cocktails.”
“We really wanted to identify some new vocabulary to use in this space that can hopefully grow well beyond our brand and it can start to be used throughout the industry to get away from comparison and that idea of mocking anything,” he said. “We wanted to help elevate the non-alcoholic space into something that has its own reverence within socializing and drinking cultures, and it’s not something where there’s ever a feeling of being separate or less than the alcoholic space.”
Before creating Audacia Elixirs, Call was a chef working pop-up dinners and collaborating with others in the region, noting how a lot of the times, there were alcohol pairings at events. Although Call always enjoyed the flavors and art of food and craft cocktails, he was never one to drink much. In these social situations, he witnessed the overindulgence of alcohol and how it was an issue, and had ideas to someday come up with some zero-proof offerings.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, someday came sooner than expected, and Call’s “Planted Cuisine” culinary business was wiped out. That’s when he took a deep dive with his mom, a certifi ed herbalist and nutritionist, into the research and development of elixirs.
“It was during that process that we really looked at the nonalcoholic spirits space in particular and tried a bunch of them,” he said. “It took us a solid two years or so to figure it out… but at the end of the day, we have two different products and flavors, and we’re incredibly proud of the end result and not having compromised the integrity of the ingredients at any point through the production process.”
If people are looking for a more gentle introduction into the world of mixed cocktails, Call said he suggests people taste their Ambrosia elixir, which tends to be a favorite among those who don’t enjoy traditional spirits or enjoy wine. However, the Aurum citrus elixir is designed and created to replicate at least on some level that bite and intensity of a spirit.
The elixirs are all produced by hand and bottled in Traverse City, but folks interested in purchasing products or having a mixed drink with it can stop at any bar, restaurant, or retail location that sells it, such as Peninsula Provisions in Lake Leelanau, Dune Bird Winery and Yard & Lake in Northport, or Suttons Bay Ciders.
“We’re firm believers that the ingredients really do nourish the body, mind, and spirit,” he said. “The response to folks enjoying the elixirs is absolutely what keeps us going in the midst of long production days and trying to figure out all the nitty gritty details of a business… it’s something that’s needed and something folks are looking for, so it’s a wonderful and beautiful thing to be able to provide that to our local community and now nationally.”
To learn more or look up complete drink recipes made from Audacia Elixirs, go to www. audaciaelixirs.com.
