Negroni Mocktails for the Holidays

St. Agrestis bottles on a holiday dinner table

The holidays are the hardest season to not drink. Every dinner has a toast, every party has a bar, and every relative has a question. The way through is not sparkling water in a wine glass. It's a drink with enough structure that nobody, including you, notices anything missing.

That's what a negroni-style drink does in December. It's bitter, it's slow, it holds an ice cube and an orange peel, and it reads as a cocktail from across the room.

The holiday serves, from the St. Agrestis recipe collection

These come from the published Phony Negroni recipe guide, which has the full measures and steps for each.

  • Spiced Phony, the winter serve. A spiced syrup, made from eight ounces of whole spices simmered at home, stirred into a Phony Negroni over ice. The syrup recipe and the build are both in the guide.
  • Phony Sbagliato, the celebration pour: a chilled Phony Negroni lengthened with non-alcoholic sparkling wine, or dry prosecco for the low-proof version. Four ingredients, four steps.
  • Phony with Espresso for the after-dinner hour. Or skip the assembly entirely and open a Phony Espresso Negroni, which builds the coffee note into the bottle.
  • Batched Phony, serves six. The one to memorize before hosting. Six chilled bottles, one pitcher, ice kept on the side, orange strips. Pour each serve over fresh ice. Nobody plays bartender during dinner.
  • Frozen Phony, serves four, for the warm-climate holiday, blended and poured like a slush. It's in the guide too.

What to put on the table

Phony Negroni: the anchor. Bitter and deep red, modeled on the 1919 Florentine Negroni, gentian root at the center, made in Brooklyn, less than 0.5% ABV. It holds SFWSC Platinum from 2024, the first Platinum the competition ever gave a non-alcoholic product.

Amaro Falso: the after-dinner bottle. A complex bitter botanical in the Italian amaro style, which is what December dinners end with.

Phony White Negroni: the bright one, Double Gold at SFWSC 2025, for the guest who wants festive without heavy.

The Starter Pack: all six flavors in one box, which settles the what-to-bring question for every party on the calendar.

Hosting math

For a dinner of eight, one batched pitcher (six bottles) covers the table, plus a few espresso negronis for after. For a party of twenty, a 24-pack of the flagship and a starter pack give you range. The bottles are 200ml single serves, so counting is simple: one per guest per hour is generous.

The toast question has an answer already: the Sbagliato serve exists for exactly this. Build it in flutes and the midnight toast needs no asterisk.

The full collection ships in packs; the Build Your Own Bundle lets you pick any five if the table has strong opinions.