Passions: When it comes to the demon drink, make mine a diabolo

Life’s hard for a hack who’s hated by alcohol – time to get creative

Grenadine makes a great diabolo but you can get creative and try all sorts with lemonade

Journalists have a reputation for liking a drink. An alcoholic drink. Not me, I’ve never been able to process the stuff. I don’t get drunk, I just get very sick. My DNA test has me as a British mongrel but my drinking choices suggest Native American… whatever was Great Grandma Gray up to down South Shields docks?

The result is that I’ve spent a lifetime trying to find something that’s tasty and interesting but teetotal fit when I visit the pub. Soft drinks – or “juice” as this incomer has learned to call it – makes me burp and belch. Pineapple and tomato juice taste great together but motivate deeply funny looks. And Irn Bru is hard to pronounce. So it’s usually an apple juice. Thrillsville, Arizona.

Now though, I’ve discovered the diabolo. A city break to Nice – where the beaches are awful but C&A still exists, so that’s a win – introduced me to the delights of this French favourite. Popular since the Roaring Twenties, it’s a simple affair, mostly lemonade with a dash of syrup. My first taste, at a pavement restaurant buzzing with sophisticated tourists (pretend that’s a thing), bore a strawberry flavour. Talk about a soft fruit sensation! I followed that with mint, not too sweet and a refreshing revelation.

Since coming home I’ve been scouring the shelves of local stores for ingredients. Lemonade is a doddle, it’s everywhere, but as for the other tastes I’ve become a big fan of Flavorz Cocktail Syrups – the range includes Passion Fruit, Simple Syrup and my favourite, Grenadine, a burst of mixed berries.

Don’t think you can whip up a quick mocktail night and day, though – my Musselburgh supermarket of choice refuses to sell the product outside of Scottish “alcohol A-OK” hours, despite them not containing a drop of the hard stuff. Quoth their in-house Tweeter: “While the Grenadine doesn’t contain alcohol, it is intended to be used with [alcohol] so we don’t want to be seen to encourage alcohol consumption. This product has the same restriction as alcohol-free items we offer in store.” Diabolical!

I did suggest stacking a few bottles in some aisle far from the demon drink but apparently that would also turn us into dipsomaniacs in a few short sips.

It’s enough to make an old hack turn to drink... so long as it’s a diabolo.

Martin Gray is a member of The Scotsman’s Future Content team