NEW YORK, Dec 31 ― There's something about drinking cocktails on New Year's Eve that makes the occasion feel extra festive. But on New Year's Day, there's often something about those very same cocktails that feels like a big mistake. One way to avoid starting off the New Year with a blistering hangover is to steer clear of the offending drinks altogether. Another, some say, is to make healthier cocktails, using kombucha as a mixer.

Dating back more than 2,000 years, kombucha is a fermented beverage made by adding a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast to sweetened tea. The resulting drink has a slight effervescence, and a pleasant sweet-tart flavour, but that's not the main reason people drink it. Because it's rich in probiotics (“good” bacteria), unpasteurized kombucha is used as a digestive aid that can offer protection from harmful bacteria and boost the immune system.

It also makes a delicious cocktail.

“Kombucha is really complex and interesting, more flavorful than soda, and drier,” said Jasmine Dravis, co-owner of Native Kitchen & Kombucha Bar in Petaluma, California.

It also has less sugar than soda and juices, which, along with kombucha's gut-health benefits, may help prevent morning-after suffering.

“That's the thing when people drink traditional alcoholic cocktails,” Dravis said. “Most of the hangover is the result of a battle between the alcohol and the sugar. With sugary cocktails, you're going to be very out of balance the next morning.”

When Dravis and her husband Joseph, a kombucha brewer, opened Native Kitchen in October, they created a list of sophisticated kombucha cocktails that are not only a pleasure to drink, but potentially healthful.

“We thought, if we came up with a low-sugar way to mix our cocktails with kombucha, which supports your gut health, we'd be bringing some balance to the table,” Dravis said.

“OK, you're still drinking alcohol, but you're not going to feel the harsh effects that you normally would,” she continued. “The perfect example is our Ginger Mule. We use fresh ginger and kombucha and some vodka, and I can tell you that when I drink it I feel much better than if I had just consumed a high-sugar cocktail with ginger beer and vodka.”

The bar also serves a kombucha mimosa, which replaces half of the orange juice with fermented tea.

“I can tell you from firsthand experience that when I drink regular mimosas I can get a headache, or I feel low after drinking them,” Dravis said. “There's definitely going to be a more sustained, balanced feeling when you drink a kombucha mimosa because you don't get the sugar crash.”

Dravis isn't the only one who believes kombucha can help prevent hangovers. Eric Childs, founder of Kombucha Brooklyn, claims that drinking kombucha between alcoholic drinks results in “reverse toxmosis,” and that drinking it the morning after can cure a hangover thanks to kombucha's detoxifying properties.

For those who are already suffering from a hangover, Native Kitchen offers kombucha on draft, along with kombucha elixirs such as the Pommy, a mixture of pomegranate juice, kombucha, local honey, lime juice and bee pollen.

The key to alleviating a hangover, Dravis said, is to reduce acidity in the body, and kombucha can help with that. “When you're hung over your body is in a state of complete acidity from the excess sugar and the alcohol, so you're going to want a quick boost of alkalinity,” she said.

Although there's no solid scientific proof of these claims, they seem to make a fair amount of sense. And when kombucha cocktails are as delicious as Native Kitchen's, lining up volunteers for further “research” shouldn't be a problem.

The Ginger Mule

Ingredients

2 ounces vodka

1 ounce honey

Juice of 1/2 lime

3 ounces kombucha

1 ounce ginger juice*

*If you don't have a juicer, you can use a ginger-flavoured kombucha, or muddle a small piece of ginger in the shaker.

Directions

1. Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until mixed.

2. Serve over ice in a copper mug or double old fashioned glass, garnished with a lime wheel.

The Pommy

Ingredients

3 ounces pomegranate juice

1 ounce lime juice

1 teaspoon local honey

6 ounces kombucha (any flavour)

Small pinch of bee pollen (available in health food stores)

Directions

1. Add all ingredients except the pollen to a shaker with ice and shake until mixed.

2. Strain into a flute glass and sprinkle bee pollen on top. ― Zester Daily/Reuters