The non-alcoholic Gin Fizz

A gin fizz is a gin sour lengthened with soda water. It dates back to the 1800s, and the classic recipe is gin, lemon juice and sugar, shaken hard, strained into a small highball with no ice and topped with soda. Egg white is traditional in many versions and gives the drink its silky body and white foam cap.

Each part has a job, and each non-alcoholic swap has to cover it:

• Gin: backbone and dryness. Juniper and citrus peel give the drink its character. Without alcohol, you need a gin alternative that's assertive enough to taste through the lemon.
• Lemon: sourness and freshness. Always fresh-squeezed. Bottled juice makes the drink taste flat.
• Sugar: balance. Simple syrup rounds off the lemon. Zero-proof gins are less dry than the real thing, so we keep the syrup at three-quarters of an ounce, not a full ounce.
• Egg white: texture. This is where a zero-proof fizz can match the original almost exactly, because foam doesn't depend on alcohol. A good dry shake gives you a thick, stable head.
• Soda: lift. It lengthens the drink and pushes the foam up. It has to be very cold and freshly opened.

The one thing that doesn't carry over is the alcohol's warmth. A gin alternative with a spicy or warming finish helps, and a very small pinch of salt in the shaker rounds everything out.

There's no ready-made gin fizz in our catalogue, but the build is easy. The gin is the only bottle you need to buy.

The gin

The best non alcoholic gin for a gin fizz has strong juniper and citrus, and ideally some warmth. Soft floral or grassy spirits disappear under the lemon.

• Monday Zero Alcohol Gin is our pick. It's juniper-led, with lemon and cucumber, and has a warming tingle that stands in for alcohol's burn. That tingle is exactly what a fizz is missing without alcohol, and the lemon note lines up with the fresh juice.
• Ritual Gin Alternative is cucumber and juniper up front, with mint, basil and a peppery heat. It makes a fresher, greener fizz, and Ritual says to use it 1:1 wherever a recipe calls for gin. If you've seen Ritual's own gin fizz recipe, this is the bottle it's built on.
• ISH London Botanical has juniper, citrus and coriander with a chilli-seed bite and no sugar. It gives the sharpest, driest fizz of the lot.
• Free Spirits The Spirit of Gin is Plymouth-style, with juniper, citrus, coriander and cardamom, and a little more body than most. A good all-rounder.
• Lyre's Dry London Spirit is juniper-forward with citrus and coriander and a dry finish. It's a little softer than Monday, so it's our choice for the Ramos, where cream and orange flower water would bury a louder gin anyway.
• Abstinence Cape Citrus leads with grapefruit and bright peel over warm spice. If you like a citrus-heavy fizz, try it with half lemon and half grapefruit juice.
• Seedlip Grove 42 isn't a gin alternative, but its three oranges, lemongrass and ginger make a bright, zesty fizz for people who find juniper too piney.

The egg white (and a gin fizz with no egg)

Egg white gives the foam, but it isn't the only way.

• Egg white: one white per drink. Use the freshest eggs you can, or pasteurized whites from a carton if you're cooking for someone who can't eat raw egg.
• Aquafaba: the liquid from a can of chickpeas. An ounce of it foams almost as well as egg white and tastes of nothing once shaken. It's the standard vegan swap and our go-to for a gin fizz with no egg.
• Nothing: skip it entirely and you have a gin rickey-style drink, crisp and fizzy with no head. Still very good, just lighter.

The soda

Plain soda water or club soda. Keep it in the fridge and open a fresh bottle or can. If you want a softer, slightly sweeter fizz, a splash of tonic in place of some of the soda adds a pleasant bitter edge that also helps the gin read as gin.

The shake

Technique matters more in a fizz than in almost any other drink, and it's the same with or without alcohol.

• Dry shake first. Shake everything except the soda without ice for about 15 seconds. Egg white foams better when it's not cold. Hold the lid on firmly; the pressure builds.
• Then shake with ice. Add plenty of ice and shake hard for another 15 seconds to chill and dilute.
• Strain into a cold glass with no ice. A small highball or a fizz glass straight from the freezer keeps the drink cold without watering it down.
• Soda last, slowly. Pour it down the inside of the glass, or into the center once the foam has settled, and watch the head rise.

This is our house fizz: Monday for backbone, a two-stage shake for foam, and soda poured down the side so the head rises above the rim.

If it's too tart, go up to a full ounce of syrup. If it tastes like lemonade, cut the syrup to half an ounce and add a pinch of salt to the shaker.

The Ramos gin fizz is the New Orleans version, invented in the late 1800s. It adds cream, lime and orange flower water to the fizz and famously takes a very long shake. The result is a tall, cloud-like drink with a meringue head standing above the glass.

It adapts well to zero proof, because most of what makes a Ramos special is the texture, not the alcohol. The cream adds the weight a non-alcoholic spirit lacks. Lyre's works best here: its drier, softer profile lets the orange flower water come through.

Shake longer than feels necessary; the head depends on it. Chilling the glass and the soda helps the foam set.

• Non-alcoholic pink gin fizz. Use a pink gin alternative in place of the regular one. Lyre's Pink London Spirit is red berries, rosehip and juniper, floral and fruity with a dry finish. Fluere Raspberry Blend is distilled fresh raspberries over juniper, lavender and lime peel, a little sweeter. With either, cut the syrup to half an ounce. For a bittersweet pink version, add half an ounce of Ghia Berry Apéritif, which is dark, juicy and tart with a faint bitter finish.
• Non-alcoholic sloe gin fizz. Sloe gin is gin infused with sloe berries and sugar. We don't list a non-alcoholic sloe gin, so this one is a workaround: replace the simple syrup with blackcurrant or blackberry syrup, and add a quarter-ounce of Curious Elixirs No. 8, a dark amaro of blackberry, blueberry and fig with gentian. It gets the color and the tart, dark-fruit edge.
• Non-alcoholic lavender gin fizz. Start with Fluere Botanical Blend, which already has lavender and juniper beneath coriander and lime peel, then swap half the simple syrup for lavender syrup (steep a tablespoon of dried culinary lavender in a cup of hot 1:1 simple syrup for 20 minutes, then strain). Go easy: too much tastes like soap.

Here's how the spirits we'd use in a zero-proof fizz compare. The table pulls live ratings from around the web; see each bottle's page for sources.

• French 75. Swap the soda for non-alcoholic sparkling wine. Same bones, more elegant, drier.
• Gin and Tonic. The simplest of the non-alcoholic gin cocktails, and the best way to taste a gin alternative on its own.
• Tom Collins. Nearly a gin fizz, but built over ice in a tall Collins glass with more soda and no egg.
• Whiskey Sour. The same sour template with a whiskey alternative in place of gin, egg white optional.

Egg-white drinks are a good sign a bar takes its zero-proof menu seriously. A few places worth trying: