Welcome to Sidecar No Sugar, a weekly Boothby newsletter about Brisbane bars and the people, work and creativity that grounds it. (You can sign up to get it in your inbox each week, right here.) This week, I chatted to Aidan Perkins about his considered non-alcoholic menus across his current and previous venues, the ethics of replicating non-alc versions of cocktails and some hacks to extend the shelf life of these drinks.
If you have info the Brisbane bar community should know, please email me contact@beccawang.com.au or send me a message via Instagram (@supper.partying).
Islay’s smoky single malt, Ardbeg, is on a quest to find its most devoted fans. To celebrate 25 years of the Ardbeg Committee and the opening of its boutique hotel, Ardbeg House, fans can win the ultimate whisky pilgrimage to Islay.
Two winners will be announced on December 6, 2025, and will travel to Islay in May next year. The prize includes two Premium Economy flights and a three-night stay at Ardbeg House, offering a world-class whisky and hospitality experience.
The competition closes November 30, 2025. To enter, submit a photo or short video with a caption showcasing your Ardbeg devotion. Join others like Tynan Sidhu of Silver’s Motel, who celebrates the bond among Ardbeg lovers, and help crown one winner with the People’s Choice Award. Entry is exclusively through www.ardbegcommitte.com.au — hit the link for more information.
One thing that separates Aidan Perkin’s beverage programs from others’ is a consistently fleshed-out non-alcoholic section. Aidan has been driven by the challenge of non-alcoholic drink-making since the start of his career in 2018, when a non-alcoholic menu was palmed off to him at Honto. From there, he went on to develop and expand the non-alc drinks repertoire of Agnes, Exhibition and now Milquetoast, where his nojito/nogroni/nogarita creative process is as equally thorough as that of his cocktails, which often involve fermentation, carbonation, produce seasonality and even local foraging. From creating drink pairings for Japanese-inspired degustations to replicating chilled red and riesling in the form of non-alc wines, inclusivity and innovation (that actually tastes good) are mutually inclusive on Aidan’s menus.
BECCA WANG: How did you get so invested in building good non-alc menus?
AIDAN PERKINS: The first time I made non-alc drinks I was quite a young bartender and had just started at Honto. I left my old job because I wanted to be more creative. I arrived at Honto at a time where they had just completed a new cocktail list and the only thing left to do was the non-alc. I think this sums up the attitude to non-alcs but they threw the non-alcs at me to do like an afterthought. And so I, as a very young bartender trying to look cool and prove himself, put a lot of effort into those drinks. We made some cool things and some stupid things. I made some sort of avocado soda once, which was abhorrently Shrek-coloured. I garnished it with an avocado pit.
BECCA: That’s hilarious, who approved that?
AIDAN: Cody Kings and George Curtis! But I think we noticed straight away that when we started putting more interesting things on the menu – previously the five non-alc drinks on the menu were essentially fruit juice, soda and sugar – we immediately saw more sales even though there were fewer options. I then started working on fermentation because I had the time; I was working at Agnes Bakery in the morning and then I'd go home and work on ferments. Those ferments then went into Agnes restaurant, which opened with a very large kombucha and kefir program. By the time I left, we were producing around 20 litres of kombucha and 10 litres of kefir a week.
I came into a lot of knowledge at Exhibition, where I designed a non-alc program for the degustations which involved creating drinks to pair for each course. I did that for two years, which was an intense crash course in non-alc flavours and how to create them.
BECCA: What are the key differences between workshopping a cocktail versus a non-alc drink?
AIDAN: A lot of people don’t realise that the biggest difference comes down to sustainability. With cocktails, I might create an ingredient, batch the drink and that’s it – it’ll keep because of the alcohol. You don’t have that luxury with non-alc drinks. You have to think about how you’ll prep and store them, how to keep ingredients fresh, prevent fermentation and preserve flavour. If you don’t plan for that, you end up constantly prepping these drinks every day because their components have such short shelf lives. Fresh juices and infusions go off so quickly. I remember being at a Sydney restaurant where they were proudly saying their temperance pairing was made fresh daily. And all I could think was, if no one orders one, that’s just litres of juice and ingredients down the drain. You don’t want to make something on Tuesday, find it’s fermented by Friday and have to scramble to remake it before service.
BECCA: Without revealing all of your secrets, how do you extend that timeframe?
AIDAN: It’s about using techniques that increase preservation. For example, clarification removes a lot of the things that cause spoilage. Clarified citrus juice, if done right, stays fresher and tastes better for much longer. That’s one way.
The other way is designing drinks that are stable enough to be kept in the freezer. For example, kombucha freezes really well – freezing has little effect on the flavour or texture but completely stops fermentation. So clarifying drinks to extend shelf life, and freezing drinks that can be frozen, helps a lot. Fresh juices don’t freeze well, but clarified ones do. When you slowly defrost them at room temperature or in warm water, they’re basically the same as what you start with.
Or the other option is designing drinks that you can prep and execute a-la-minute fresh, like if you're doing something with super fresh fruit juice, are you able to juice that a-la-minute without it actually affecting service? If so, then just serve it that way so there's no wastage and it's still super fresh and tasty.
BECCA: I feel like with non-alc drinks, most people just make imitations of cocktails. Would you say this is something you do or do you have a different approach?
AIDAN: I think people making non-alcoholic versions of cocktails kind of sucks. I think the only thing that differentiates me and others with non-alcoholic drinks is that I've actually put some effort into them. Non-alcoholic versions of cocktails, for the most part, require little to no effort from the people that are making them but it is the easiest way.
At Milquetoast, we base our non-alc drinks on wine serves because we want people to feel immersed in the environment so they are designed to look like wine. We call them a non-alcoholic sparkling and non-alcoholic riesling, a non-alcoholic chilled red, et cetera. But they're not designed to be exact one-for-one replications.
There’s also a little bit of an ethical issue around it as well. People don’t drink for a lot of different reasons but if you’ve got someone who’s not drinking because they have an issue with alcohol, then drinking a non-alcoholic version of a cocktail could actually be quite detrimental to them.
BECCA: What are the most memorable non-alc drinks you’ve made in the past?
AIDAN: One that's most memorable to me is one we did at Exhibition which was a non-alcoholic pairing for our final dessert at the time and we just called it ‘choccy milk’. It was essentially clarified chocolate milk. We infused cacao nibs into milk then added some sugar and lactic acid to split it, clarified it then served it to guests in a wine glass. It was crazy seeing people's reactions when I put this drink in front of them. It looks like an Amontillado sherry but telling them, “Hey, here's a chocolate milk”, and describing it as choccy milk which is what my mates and I called it in high school at the tuckshop. And then saying that in a fine dining setting was very cool.
I also made a mushroom hot chocolate which involved dehydrating Swiss brown mushrooms, blitzing them into a powder which kind of tasted like Milo and then making a tea from that powder, sweetening it, then adding some coffee and chocolate.
I've also used a lot of watermelon skin and watermelon skin soda. Making an oleo from watermelon skin and adding some wasabi or horseradish or beetroot and turning that into a soda. That’s been a recurring trick.
BECCA: What would you like to see more of from Brisbane with this kind of thing?
AIDAN: I think bars can learn a lot from what cafes are doing right now. There’s still this idea that non-alcoholic drinks are just fruit juice or cider but some cafes in Brisbane are making incredible drinks. They’ve expanded beyond simple coffees to offer interesting juice programs, smoothies and matcha and other things. I’d love to see more effort and intent in the non-alcoholic space because that’s what people care about. I’m not doing anything crazy or out there, it’s just about putting thought and effort into it. Apparently that’s all it takes to get noticed.
Islay’s smoky single malt, Ardbeg, is on a quest to find its most devoted fans. To celebrate 25 years of the Ardbeg Committee and the opening of its boutique hotel, Ardbeg House, fans can win the ultimate whisky pilgrimage to Islay.
Two winners will be announced on December 6, 2025, and will travel to Islay in May next year. The prize includes two Premium Economy flights and a three-night stay at Ardbeg House, offering a world-class whisky and hospitality experience.
The competition closes November 30, 2025. To enter, submit a photo or short video with a caption showcasing your Ardbeg devotion. Join others like Tynan Sidhu of Silver’s Motel, who celebrates the bond among Ardbeg lovers, and help crown one winner with the People’s Choice Award. Entry is exclusively through www.ardbegcommitte.com.au — hit the link for more information.
