Fake booze for fake drinking!

Snaps816

I can't be the only one puzzling over how to fool friends and family at holiday festivities this year. My husband's family would know something was up if I didn't have any wine for the 5 nights we'll be staying with them. So tonight I found this "alchohol removed" wine at the liquor store and bought a bunch to bring on our visit to the in-laws'. It was so funny, as I was loading up my cart with the stuff, I caught this other woman watching me and then we shared a knowing little smile. Tis the season, I guess!

Anyway, the wine is called Fre, and comes in a bunch of different flavors. Or in my case, colors -- I'm more interested in it looking the part than tasting like anything. It says it contains "less than .05% alcohol" so I guess there is a small amount in there, but I only intend to carry around a glass and take a small sip for show every now and then. I don't need the calories and I want to play it safe even with the low percentage. I did try a sip tonight just to make sure it's not totally gross, and it wasn't. Better than some crappy wines I've had! And real-ish enough that if someone else tried a sip they wouldn't guess there was no booze in there. 

Maybe this product is old hat around here, but I was so pleased to find it, and that it wasn't disgusting! I was also looking at non-alcoholic beers but they were all way too obvious with the labeling. Next steps, plan how I'm going to sneak the stuff around with me on this trip (it'd be easier in my own home for sure). Also how to avoid coffee without anyone noticing. Anyone have good tips/excuses that work in these situations?

Tra1010011

I got my BFP the morning we were going to my parents' for the weekend. I wasn't ready to tell them that soon, so I feigned being sick all weekend to avoid drinking. Turns out my parents have never seen me turn down a drink so my mom immediately knew, but she didn't call me on it and let me keep pretending all weekend. Anyway, to hide my lack of coffee, I poured a quarter cup of coffee (I've read you are allowed up to 200 mg of caffeine a day -- which is 1-2 cups of coffee, but I wasn't taking any chances that early), and filled the rest of the mug with milk so it just looked like I was drinking my coffee light. And I carried my mug everywhere so no one really saw in it either.

When I told my mom and she rattled of all the ways she already knew, my coffee wasn't one of them.

Bubblegum5586

We are telling our immediate families Christmas morning but we have to get through Christmas eve with the extended family first. I feel like my SIL will ask immediately if I don't have a drink (she has the past few years) and lots of the aunts ask often too (that's what happens when you have been married over 2 years I guess).

So my plan is to buy the Coors Light aluminium bottles that have the screw off cap that can screw back on. And fill one or 2 of those with Sparking Cider and drink that! H is worried it wont smell enough like beer, but Coors Lite is barely beer!

tisunge602

My husband and I are beer snobs, so I tried all the NA beers last time I was pregnant. (Friends don't let friends drink lite beer! )  I did not like Clausthaler or St. Pauli's. O'Douls Amber and Kaliber are pretty decent. (Just a PSA if there are any other beer snobs out there.) You could always pour one of those into a beer glass so no one sees the label.

The other thing you can do is swap glasses with your husband throughout the night. Anytime someone pours you a fresh drink, swap it with his almost empty one when people aren't watching. Just make sure the two of you are "drinking" the same thing. My brother and his wife did this over the summer just before they announced, and had us all fooled!

mumblefrog86

you don't need to avoid coffee. a cup or 2 is still safe. I can't do coffee while pregnant because it turns my stomach the smell and taste.
cool find on the wine I didn't know that existed.

pelorunningmama

I got some Fre the other day for the exact same reason! We have wonderful neighbors who are like grandparents to our toddler and they invited us over for cocktails the other night. They know I am an only wine or champagne drinker, so my husband found some non-alcoholic stuff at the local grocery store. We each just took over our own cocktail and it worked great. I plan to do that tonight as my in-laws are in town and we aren't telling until after Christmas. 

lalalorelai

I survived a whole weekend with my college friends for a wedding. You'll be surprised that people will just take you at face value that you're drinking alcohol. And, trust me, we're a group of drinkers and I'm notorious for being one of the heaviest imbibers. 

The easiest thing for me to do was to make a mocktail. Soda water and cranberry juice looks just like vodka cran. A diet coke with a lime can pass for rum and coke, Jack and coke, pick your poison. I panicked a bit at the rehearsal dinner because it was just beer and wine, but the waitress brought me apple cider in a wine glass and everyone was fooled. It looked just like a sweeter wine and tasted pretty good. 

For Christmas, I'm planning on just walking around with a beer and switching with H every so often. No one's going to be monitoring me closely enough to make sure I'm actually drinking  

BabyM729

Ugh I'm in the same boat. My family will immediately question me if they see I'm not drinking. My plan is to try and make a "mock tail" when no one is looking, hopefully they will have more than just wine or I'll be screwed! I like the swapping drinks with DH idea too

DuchessJP

Same boat here too. I am just going to use the excuse that I am on antibiotics. I have a wicked cold right now so they'll buy it!

ReadyForaB

I drank club soda with cranberry at my office Christmas party this past weekend. Worked like a charm! One woman asked me what I was drinking and I told her vodka cran. Now I will make sure to tell her I was lying when I tell her the news in a few weeks haha.

LilLambie

Last pregnancy I had my Aunt's birthday at a pub. My sister is really suspicious of everything so I couldn't just say I wasn't drinking. I usually drink vodka, lime and soda, so just had lime and soda instead. Most disgusting drink of my life but it fooled her.

Edit: spelling

MSUgrad12

OP- I'm a HUGE coffee drinker and always have a cup at work and will go get some through the day. (My secret Santa gift was a Starbucks gift card). I have a metal thermos, so I've been putting tea in their without a string and drinking that at work. I've also not drank coffee in the morning and will save my coffee allowance for a small single espresso drink in the afternoon.

crob5685

We are going to tell immediate family at Christmas even though i am only 5 weeks because I decided if I have a second loss (had 1 in June) that I would tell them anyway, so why wait! Friends are harder for me. Of course had a Christmas party with our close group of friends Saturday and that was harder. I brought "not your fathers root beer" which comes in a dark bottle and fake sipped for a while then occasionally dipped out to the bathroom and dumped some. Totally got called out for drinking slow and then I heaven forbid had a bottle of water and totally got called out for drinking water. A couple friends were even like "do you have something to tell us?". I floundered a bit with that, don't really care if they suspect, but hate that people do that. I am of course guilty of having done this before, but never again. We are hosting a New Years party at our house with same group of friends, will have to work on strategy for that one. A little easier in my own house I hope!

ecr3n7

I had a wine bottle half drank in the fridge from.before I found out. I dumped it out and filled it with cran apple juice. It's a local winery that's a velvet red so no one will know what it's suppose to taste like since my family is 500+ miles away from the winery

carstekj

DH and I were just talking about this because his family ALWAYS has drinks on Christmas Eve (and whenever we stop by). So I might make a mocktail since they usually have malibu orange juice. Make it with just orange juice and ice. If that doesn't work I'll share with DH or use the bathroom and dump some! They know my weakness is Diet Coke, so they won't think it's odd if I only have a drink or 2 and switch to a soda.

SheHulk723

I usually just say I'm cutting calories or on a medication that doesn't mix well with alcohol (that was a great reason during my first pregnancy while I was still recovering from a car accident)  and I just drink coffee anyway.  A little caffeine is fine!

lacinjonveach

I would have tried to keep my pregnancy a secret, but on December 11, when I was scheduled to have a minor surgery, my fiance, and his mother were in the room with me when the doctor came in and told me I couldn't have surgery because I'm pregnant. Jon is an only child, so naturally, his mother couldn't wait to spill the beans to everyone she knows. So I had no choice but to tell everyone first.

emilykate321

I wish I'd read these ideas prior to last weekend, we were at a party and I'm known for being sort of a drinker. ..I drank seltzer water in a solo cup and everyone suspected! I had to lie and say I was too hungover to drink. Even still, someone point blank asked me if I was pregnant. It's really rude to ask. I can't believe the nerve of some people. :-/

Snaps816

Got back from the trip last night. It worked out fine -- in fact most nights no one was really drinking, so it wasn't a big issue. On Chritmas Eve when someone broke out the wine, I poured a small amount in my cup (luckily we were using non-fancy solo cups so I didn't even need to pour much. I do hate to waste perfectly good wine). Then I snuck off and poured it out and used my non-alcoholic wine and no one noticed! I don't think people were paying that much attention anyway, but just in case, I think I fooled them. 

BlessUrHeart29

This makes me chuckle because I was thinking the same thing before Christmas. We told our close family at Christmas, but for bigger parties I've been 1. trying not to draw attention to it, 2. saying I wasn't feeling well if questioned, and 3. occasionally holding a glass of wine. 

crob5685

Dreading New Years! Originally we were hosting which would have made it easier, but now we are going to a friends place, going to be super annoying.

ThursdayMorning

My trick at our Christmas Eve party with fam was to pour a bit of apple juice into a wine glass (when nobody was looking) and dilute it with water until the color perfectly matched the bottle of white everyone was drinking. It worked perfectly! Until I spilled my "wine" and it smelled like apple juice. Ha! Nobody noticed but me though.

tmk0325

I have had this problem for the last week! I am thankful the holidays are over now!!  My girlfriends and I get together once during the holidays when everyone is home and it's usually a night filled with lots of drinking --wine, beer, booze you name it.  I found out I was pregnant two days before and I ended up telling one of my friends just so she could help me. During dinner I took a glass of wine and pretended to sip it, got up a couple times and dumped half in the toilet and kept filling my glass during dinner. I brought with a "cranberry moscow mule" that I pre-mixed and told everyone that it had alcohol in it when it really was ginger beer (non alcoholic), ginger ale, cranberry juice, limes, and cranberries. Everyone raved how great that was. So I had a few of those! Then we went out to the bars, which was the harder part. I thankfully loaded my giant purse with a few non alcoholic cans of beer, bought a beer at each bar and then went in the bathroom, dumped it out and refilled it with my NA. No one really thought anything of it.  I did also tell them I had a stomach ache earlier in the day, so they thought I wasn't feeling well when I declined shots! Ha! My friend did a great job with helping me too. During Christmas, I just pretended to make a mixed drink and put sprite in a dark glass so you couldn't see what was in it and also had a virgin mary.  Later in the day I also took a beer, opened it, did my bathroom switcheroo trick and was good!  No one thought anything of it!! I tell you though, it is work trying to hide that you aren't drinking!  

Snaps816

I think this is the toughest time of year -- so many parties all in a short time span. At least it's halfway over! In January I think I will just use the excuse that I'm doing a January "cleanse" or "dry-January" thing, because lots of people I know do that for health or weight loss reasons. Shouldn't be an issue again until maybe the Super Bowl. 

Your night out with the girlfriends sounds like the hardest of all! You really went all out to fool them and it sounds like you did. 

whitney812

Haha! I love reading the comments. 

I have been drinking "vodka sodas with lime" (really just club soda and lime) around my friends out.

We also held our friends annual Christmas party.. we had made a big bowl of alcoholic punch... before the party I made a mocktail with the same juices, so it was the exact same color, and hid that in our bedroom. I would pour from the alcoholic bowl, then run to our room and pour it out and swap. A little extreme yes, but we were only like 5 weeks in at this point and I didn't want to risk ANY of our friends figuring it out. I was pretty proud of myself lol.

tmk0325

Snaps816 said:

I think this is the toughest time of year -- so many parties all in a short time span. At least it's halfway over! In January I think I will just use the excuse that I'm doing a January "cleanse" or "dry-January" thing, because lots of people I know do that for health or weight loss reasons. Shouldn't be an issue again until maybe the Super Bowl. 

Your night out with the girlfriends sounds like the hardest of all! You really went all out to fool them and it sounds like you did. 

@Snaps816 It was pretty hard! My friend that knew, said she didn't think anyone else caught on at all!  

I also forgot to mention that my boyfriend and I did the beer swap thing at two different Christmas'. We would each take the same beer and I would go dump a bit in the toliet, so it looked like I was drinking it and when he was almost done, I would set mine next to his and he would take my beer and finish it.  Funny thing is his sister announced she was pregnant at Christmas and everyone was like yeah, we were wondering why you weren't drinking last night, we figured you were pregnant!  Good thing, I kept pretending!!  

cbpalagi

Whenever I'm at a bar, I try to get there first so I can pull the waitress or waiter aside as ask them for water with a lime in a short glass and ask them to bring that to me all night long. My friends think it's a gin and tonic, and when I ask the waiter for another, they think he has my drink memorized.