Cocktails with Apple juice
Apple juice is a non-alcoholic fruit juice pressed from crushed apples.
How it's used
Apple juice is sweet and low in acid, so a drink built on it usually wants lemon or another sharp element. In small amounts it adds flavor; poured long, it becomes the body of the drink. Cloudy pressed juice tastes of apple and clear filtered juice mostly of sugar, and the gap shows more in a mixed drink than neat. Apple brandy, whiskey, ginger and mint all suit it.
Substitutes for Apple juice
Cloudy apple juice
Swaps with clear one for one. In the US it is called apple cider, and gives a fuller, hazier drink. British cider is a fermented alcoholic drink and no substitute.
Pear nectar
About half again as sweet: 15 g of sugar per 100 g, against 9.6 g. Use a third less, or add a squeeze of lemon.
White grape juice
About as sweet as pear nectar and needs the same fix.
Apple juice from concentrate
Swaps straight in, though it tastes flatter and less fresh.
Storage
Fresh juice browns within the hour and is properly brown by the next day, so press to order or slow it with lemon. Bottled keeps to its date and wants the fridge once open.
