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Actors David Burtka and Neil Patrick Harris are passionate about parties. “A theme party, a holiday party, a dinner party, a cocktail party — we love them all,” the couple writes in their book Both Sides of the Glass.
Burtka and Harris describe themselves as a “mixed sobriety couple” and have built a reputation for hosting parties that are lively and inclusive — whether their guests drink or don’t. Both Sides of the Glass (co-written with Zoë Chapin) aims to help everyone else do the same.
Burtka, a Cordon Bleu–trained chef, stopped drinking almost a decade ago, around the same time that Harris was becoming more interested in mixology. “We realized that what we valued most were the moments of togetherness — of sitting down to a cocktail before the evening chaos began, celebrating a friend’s new job or engagement, or serving up a perfectly themed pairing at our annual Christmas party,” they write.
At the time, Burtka recalled to me on a video call, there weren’t many enticing options. He would be offered either a beverage that he would drink during the day, like sparkling water, or a mocktail that felt “geared towards children,” he said, like “your pineapple juice with your ginger syrup.”
So, not to banish himself and fellow non-drinkers to the corner with bitters and soda for eternity, Burtka and Harris set about creating their own concoctions that could satisfy all partygoers, adhering to the ethos that, as they write, “the cocktail and the mocktail must coexist!”
Today, a growing number of interesting, ready-made nonalcoholic options are available. But you don’t need to acquire a huge arsenal of professional gear or spend hours in the kitchen to make your own homemade libations, says Burtka: “There’s so many shortcuts, you don’t necessarily need tons of products.”
Here are the tools and tricks that Burtka recommends having up your sleeve so that all your guests can feel like the life of the party, no matter their drink of choice.
