A vegan's guide to drinking
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but a lot of alcohol isn’t vegan. You might have been fine with switching to oat milk or buying agave instead of honey, but to find out veganism affects you in the pub too? Not the best news, so we’ve compiled a little guide to help you through the minefield that is drinking as a vegan.
You would think that the back of a wine bottle should tell you if it isn’t vegan, but they are not required to, so they don’t. Most alcohol doesn’t contain any animal products, so it depends how strictly vegan/vegetarian you want to be because animal products are used in the filtering process for a lot of alcoholic drinks.
To check if your favourite booze is vegan head to Barnivore and search their data base. Or search for Vegaholic on the app store for an on the go guide.
Beer and cider
Beer lovers are mostly OK. A lot of big beer brands are vegan, but real ales often use fish bladders in the process of being made. Guinness had made the decision to drop this ingredient in their process so next year we should all be able to enjoy a nice pint on St. Patrick’s Day. Fruity cider lovers out there are in trouble though, most ciders use gelatine in the manufacturing, like Strongbow, Rekorderlig and Kopparberg.
Wine
I didn’t want to do the research on this wine, wine is made of grapes and is of course vegan right? NOPE! A lot of white and rose wines use fish bladders and reds often use derivatives of milk and eggs. There are vegan wines out there, usually organic branded wine will be vegan. (Co-op prosecco is vegan just FYI)
Spirits
These are mostly vegan, but occasionally animal products are used in the process of imported spirits. Obviously, anything like baileys or advocaat aren’t vegan because they contain milk (unless you try the new vegan baileys).
If you’re headed for a night out your best bet is sticking to main brand beers or spirits and remember no bloody mary cocktails as Worcester sauce contains anchovies.
