Celebrate New Year’s Eve With These Safe for Vegan Alcoholic Drinks

Christmas is in the rearview mirror and New Year’s Eve is just a couple of days away. A chance to ring in a new year full of optimism and hope! We’ve been through yet another tough one, but hopefully things are on the up for us all in 2022. 🤞

But, as a vegan, what alcohol is safe to drink this New Year’s? Unfortunately, there still remain some non-vegan methods in the alcohol industry, and ingredients can include milk, honey, egg whites, isinglass (fish guts) and even gelatin to filter and clarify. 

Happily, there are many plant-based drinks though it can sometimes take a little bit of digging to work out exactly which ones. Barnivore is a fantastic resource: just enter the name of your favourite tipple and they will search through a database of almost 55,000 drinks to inform you if it’s vegan or not. You can also filter searches to display only vegan results in many online supermarkets such as Tesco, Aldi, and Waitrose. 

To make things easier for you, we’ve selected our top safe for vegan (SFV) alcoholic drinks to enjoy with your family and friends as you ring in the bells, including our staff “top of the top” picks! Some drinks may be new to you, and others might be a pleasant familiar surprise!

We all love a cool, refreshing beer in the evening, or in fact anytime of the day during indulgent family holidays such as New Years. From grandma to your cool uncle down south, beer and lager are ideal winners for most of your guests. Kick back and relax in the safe knowledge that a whole host of your lifetime favourites are indeed fully vegan and made without any animal or insect by-products. 🍺

For those of you who enjoy a more adventurous, fizzy and fruity beverage to ring in the bells, you have not been forgotten! Raise a glass of aromatic, delightful, fully vegan cider with your close family and best buddies. Yum. 

Ah, nothing quite beats a nice, cold, tall glass of dark stout. The plant-based and cruelty-free world was mighty happy indeed back in 2016 when Guinness finally went vegan! Some of us had patiently waited many a year for this glorious moment. Guinness Stout is a deserved winner of our staff top pick, but don’t sleep on the rising competition - they get better and better every year!

Whether it’s vegan red wine, white wine, rose, or prosecco, there is an appropriate occasion for them all. For example, red with plant-based cheese and crackers or a gorgeous nut roast, and white for fake salmon and appetisers. These days, most supermarkets such as Tesco, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s have their own branded vegan wines so have a look on the back for a “vegan” logo to be safe. Popular wines such as Gallo and Echo Falls are not vegan, however, so do be careful!  

To some, it’s not New Year’s or Hogmanay without a nice clink of whiskey and some strong eye contact as the fireworks blast off. There are a million vegan whisky options out there: cheap, expensive, mid range, aged, and so on. Here are our top NYE vegan whisky picks…

New Year’s Eve is perhaps the ultimate fun time of year to live it up and party! Shake off the problems and stresses of the last twelve months gone, put your glad rags on, let your hair down, and try out some funky new concoctions that are oh-so-sweet yet full of lovely, fiery alcohol, oh yes! 🍸

Tradition dictates that the new year should only be chimed in with a cold glass of champers and a kiss on the lips of your special one. Fear not, there are many vegan champagnes out there to help you to experience the passing of the year in true elegant style! 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… woo-hoo! 🥂

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