The enjoyment of citron pressé: why dry July in Paris makes a refreshing change

I’ll admit, it’s a lot stranger to do a “dry June” or a “dry July” than a “dry January”. As a good friend from London quipped to me on a current go to to Paris, she doesn’t a lot count on to succeed in August with a summer time seashore bod, as a summer time stomach, the fruit of too many crisp beers at barbecues.

In Paris, particularly, it’s simple to seek out your self slipping from terrace to terrace in evenings that keep mild till late, an apéro right here, a glass of wine there. It’s not a metropolis that drinks to extra – but it surely does maybe drink excessively, particularly with a craft beer trade worthy of pulling market share away from wine and bobo wine bars preventing again with vibrant and energetic pure wines scoured from throughout the continent.

However when one other good friend requested me if I’d be part of her on a month-long alcohol quick within the lead-up to her bachelorette celebration and wedding ceremony, I mentioned sure, and rediscovered one thing terribly easy: the citron pressé.

Even when it’s not on the menu, any brasserie price being at will be capable of serve you a citron pressé. In any case, it’s only a deconstructed lemonade (in apply, although, it’s a lot greater than that). The freshly squeezed lemon juice will most probably are available in a tall, slender glass, which it fills by no less than two-thirds – maybe on a silver tray – together with a carafe of water and a dish of sugar.

On a primary dry-apéro out, at a nondescript terrace dealing with a crowded rue Montorgueil, I ditch the sugar and prime off the glass with water. For somebody who grew up within the US, this, maybe, is the least American factor about me: each time I cross the Atlantic, meals goes from straight-up saccharine to “why the hell would they put sugar even within the pizza sauce?”

As gen Z, specifically, turns away from alcohol, France is, maybe unexpectedly, considerably on the forefront of a revolution in crafting non-alcoholic drinks. There’s JNPR, an imitation gin distilled from juniper berries. Or Amazaké Ya, a barely candy, fermented rice drink, made domestically from the leftover mash from producing saké (on this case, from French riz de camargue).

Upmarket cocktail bars now virtually universally provide mocktails crafted with the identical consideration, creativity and daring as the remainder of the menu, mixing drinks with elements resembling olive brine, butterfly pea tea, camomile and Szechuan pepper. However with the speedy after which receding bitterness of a citron pressé comes a pressured second of mindfulness that doesn’t exist with another non-alcoholic substitute drink – even the straightforward sorts, resembling ginger ale or kombucha (additionally a beautiful substitute for beer), which arrive of their last consumable type.

The citron pressé is tart – that’s the purpose, to sip it slowly, the way in which you would possibly a cocktail or a glass of wine – and so purely lemon. The tip of my tongue tingles, and I think about my veins now coursing with nutritional vitamins. After a couple of extra sips create a bit more room within the glass, I pour in some extra water, after which repeat.

Going dry for a month wasn’t some massive problem bringing a way of accomplishment on the finish. My pals all nodded their heads nonchalantly as I abstained. However generally a pause can draw your consideration elsewhere and depart you unexpectedly refreshed. Type of like a citron pressé on a French terrace in the summertime, sitting at a spherical desk with its absurdly small Duralex water glasses, and the solar beating down on Paris stone.

• Alexander Hurst is a France-based author and an adjunct lecturer at Sciences Po, the Paris Institute of Political Research