Thriving Alcohol-Free with Mocktail Mom

EP 80 Using Tea and Kombucha In Functional Mixology with Lila Volkas

• Deb, Mocktail Mom • Season 1 • Episode 80

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Ready to transform your approach to non-alcoholic beverages? Join me for a delightful chat with Lila Volkas, a certified nutrition consultant and mixologist who is on a mission to make nutrition and mixology fun and easy to understand through her engaging public and corporate workshops. Since 2012, she's been hosting food and beverage classes worldwide, captivating thousands, including big names like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. 

In our conversation, we dive into her journey from fitness instructor to kombucha connoisseur, and how she turned her college dorm-room kombucha experiments into a thriving business. She shares her "mocktail philosophy" and her passion for creating drinks that are both tasty and functional, with a special focus on tea-based mocktails. Whether you're a mocktail novice or a seasoned sipper, tune in to discover how Lila’s changing the game with her fun, accessible, and health-conscious approach to mixology. 


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Deb:

Buckle up, friends, and welcome to the Thriving Alcohol-Free Podcast. I'm your host, deb, otherwise known as Mocktail Mom, a retired wine drinker that finally got sick and tired of spinning on life's broken record called Detox to Retox. Let this podcast be an encouragement to you. If alcohol is maybe a form of self-care for you, where you find yourself dragging through the day waiting to pour another glass, I am excited to share with you the fun of discovering new things to drink when you aren't drinking and the joy of waking up each day without a hangover. It is an honor to serve as your sober, fun guide. So sit back and relax or keep doing whatever it is you're doing. This show is produced for you with love from the great state of Kentucky. Thanks so much for being here and big time cheers. Okay, hey friends, it's Deb. Welcome back to Thriving Alcohol-Free. I am so happy you're here. I am making a new friend here off screen right before we started recording.

Deb:

Lila Volkas has joined me in the podcast. She is a mixologist. She is. Let me read your bio. I'm going to be official. I'm not always official, but you and I just met. So I don't know you really well, but I'm so excited to meet you and I'm so glad to know that we connected through that. You did SANS Bar Academy with Chris Marshall, so I just found that out, but that's kind of our connection, so shout out to Chris hey, chris, yes, yes, we love Chris. Yes, yes, we love Chris.

Deb:

Okay, lila is a certified nutrition consultant and workshop facilitator. Based in Oakland, california, she makes nutrition, mixology and culinary information easy to understand oh, thank heavens for that and fun to learn through her public and corporate workshops. I'm so excited to talk to you about this. Lila has been hosting food and beverage classes since 2012 with thousands of participants all over the world. She works with companies like Google some companies you may have heard of Google, microsoft and Amazon to bring team bonding and wellness into the workplace. I love it. I love what you're doing. Yeah, what got you started in this? Okay, what? Yeah, how did this journey start for you?

Lila:

Yeah Well, I have always loved teaching, and so I kind of paired that with my enthusiasm for wellness. It first started out as kind of through fitness. I was a spin instructor, I taught yoga, and then I really found my way when I started making kombucha in college Really Yep, like in your dorm, in my dorm and then my friends were like, what's this weird bottle that you're bringing to class? I'm like, oh, it's kombucha. And this was in 2012, when kombucha was not as much of a thing, and so I was really involved in my student food co-op. So I decided to host my first food workshop there, and then I have been continuing to teach kombucha workshops since then and, have you know, expanded my workshop repertoire since then as well.

Deb:

Okay, so can you do virtual kombucha workshops.

Lila:

Yeah, so most of my classes are virtual for corporate teams, especially since the pandemic, a lot of people have stayed virtual, so I specialize in shipping kits. So I send everybody everything that they need to make kombucha, as well as, like my 15 plus other classes that I teach that have kits as well.

Lila:

So you have all this stuff in your house, like kits that you can just send out to people, or you have, I mean it started out as my house and it was full of jars and kombucha organisms and it was wild, so I eventually got like a studio workspace. So I've had one for the last three years where it's my office. I host in-person classes there for people who are local in the Bay Area. I'm based in Oakland, Okay Okay, and then I do a lot of shipping there as well.

Deb:

I am so fascinated by this.

Lila:

How did we not connect before?

Deb:

Like you and I haven't connected really before, like I don't think I didn't know what you were up to over there. I love it. So when you host classes online, I looked on your schedule. Okay, so your summer schedule, I love this. You have kombucha brewing. You have you did a nourishing vessels. It was called mocktails and pottery. So obviously that's in person. You're not mailing them a kiln, right, and then you're doing. You're doing one. I think I don't know if it'll be. It probably be after the podcast comes out, but tea-based mocktail mixology Yep, what is that? What happens in the class? Totally.

Lila:

So that is how to make mocktails specifically using tea and tea flavor pairings. So I mean, I'm sure you're aware that it's kind of hard to get some complexity and layers of flavor into mocktails when you're just using fruit and juice and bubbly water. But I think tea is a really amazing, like, very accessible ingredient that people can use to add complexity and it can add some energy with the caffeine. So I, you know, have a little history and kind of one on one-one on tea and then how to use that in creating your own mocktails, and then I send everybody a kit Anywhere in the world or just the US, mostly the US. I used to ship, you know, more internationally but the restrictions and the cost, of that.

Deb:

It's so expensive. Yeah, I tried to send a sweatshirt to Canada and it was like a thousand dollars, not really, but I mean, it was just like this is. I mean I might as well just drive it there because it's so expensive. Oh my gosh, okay. So yeah, walk us through. Like what's a workshop like? And what's people's reaction? Like what are they expecting, do people?

Lila:

come in and they're like, oh, it's not gonna be fun, this is just mocktails. Like, what's the expectations? What are people's reactions? Yeah, so I'll just first start that I have this pretty unique position in my kind of workshop facilitation realm in the corporate world, because a lot of people are coming to my class because they want to, they chose it, they like selected that, they wanted to do this class, and a lot of people, someone else chose for them, their team, to do this, so they're just showing up so I get a.

Lila:

You know, I'm usually like an intro to mocktails to people who are regular alcohol drinkers and I think that's like really special and I think I blow their mind a little bit with, like what's possible with just food.

Lila:

So, yeah, one of my workshops looks like again, most people opt for a kit workshop where I send them the ingredients, but people can also do ones that they source their own ingredients, and so we make two different mocktails that are kind of have a functional herbal kind of spin. Since my background's in kind of holistic health and nutrition, I love sprinkling that in there. And then I also kind of cover my mocktail philosophy like what are the elements of a successful mocktail? Because I really want to empower people to make mocktails at home. Because I really want to empower people to make mocktails at home. That's my goal is to like give them a head start and then have them kind of continue on. And I've even started asking poll questions at the beginning and end of my classes and I'd say the majority of people who come to my classes have never made a mocktail before, and at the end they're, you know, selecting that they would very likely make one after taking this class. So that's really great data for me to have.

Deb:

Oh, that's awesome, that's awesome. Do they probably come thinking like, okay, we're making Shirley temples, right?

Lila:

Maybe you know like yeah, I don't know what we're doing, but I try and make it accessible for all different styles of drinkers. So I think, I just think that mocktails are for everyone. So that's yeah, it's special to introduce that no-transcript.

Deb:

Okay, yeah, so did you have like a history with like alcohol, or was there like a reason you got into mocktails?

Lila:

Yeah, I mean I'd say I kind of stopped drinking regularly around 2014, just because I found I really wasn't making me feel good. So soon after that I kind of had a health crisis that got me into nutrition, but I wasn't feeling super great and so having a headache and feeling sluggish and just not feeling good was like too costly for a little bit of fun. So basically since then I like might have a sip of alcohol, taste someone's drink, but I haven't consumed like a full drink since then. Wow a decade.

Lila:

Yeah, it just kind of happened. So, yeah, I've been on the search for fun alternatives for a very long time and I really started with more elixirs, which I'm happy to kind of share, like my definition of both. But yeah, I've been looking for fun drinks that don't have alcohol for, you know, over 10 years.

Deb:

A very long time, yeah, so I mean this was before really people were talking. I mean it was more like at that point was probably like a virgin daiquiri, a virgin pina colada, right, it wasn't necessarily. People were talking about mocktails, necessarily, especially functional mocktails, right, right.

Lila:

Yeah. So that's where kind of elixirs felt like the best fit for the first part of my journey. And then, about four years ago, I started getting more into the kind of like mixology and kind of trying to make things that had the aesthetics and the look and the feel and the taste of a cocktail, just without the alcohol. Before that I so yeah, let's talk about elixir.

Lila:

So yeah, my definition of what an elixir is is that it's a functional beverage, so it's a beverage with a purpose, and that purpose could be supporting physical health, like an immune boosting elixir with ginger and turmeric and lemon and all of these great ingredients to help boost your immune system. Or it could be more energetic, using herbs like rose to like connect us with our hearts. So using both of those kind of ways of working with that intention. You know, elixirs have some intention behind what they are supporting, whereas I feel like mocktails are non-alcoholic cocktails and they overlap, they kind of have a Venn diagram with elixirs, overlap, they kind of have a Venn diagram with elixirs. Mocktails can be elixirs, but I think part of what sets kind of mocktails aside is that they're looking to have that feel of a cocktail visually as well as like taste wise, the taste profile, so they can overlap but they're not always the same.

Deb:

Love it, love it. Do you ever use non-alcoholic spirits? Is that something you incorporate, or is that something that you talk about in your workshops or anything?

Lila:

Yeah, I definitely like to incorporate non-alcoholic spirits Sometimes I think I'm. My philosophy around mocktails for myself is like I'm more food and kind of culinary and nutrition oriented. So I use a lot of herbs and syrups that I make and kind of things in that realm. But I think non-alcoholic spirits are a great option and I do integrate them sometimes and I definitely in my workshop, in addition to making recipes and talking about mocktails, I also just kind of give people a very, very quick overview of like what's out there in the non-alcoholic product realm from non-alcoholic spirits to ready to drinks, to functional. So I like do a little show and tell.

Deb:

And people love that.

Lila:

So I'm developing another class. That's like more of a kind of like taste, a mocktail tasting, where people will just taste ready to drink stuff.

Deb:

Okay, I'm a huge fan of the ready to drink, which I didn't even know. Rtds right. I didn't know what that was, but yeah, I just I'm so lazy, it's like I just don't want to make it.

Deb:

Yeah, yeah, my husband got me two beverage refrigerators so we have cans in there and yeah, yeah, it makes it nice to be able to just to grab some, especially in the summer right now and stuff. So yeah, yes, okay. What's the craziest thing that's happened at a mocktail workshop that you've done? Has there been any total catastrophes or something crazy?

Lila:

crazy. I mean I started learning kind of my mixology skills because during the pandemic, people were asking me to teach cocktail classes. I was like I don't actually drink, but I'm going to fulfill this demand. So I taught myself how to make cocktails and like watch lots of videos, read lots of things, and so one of my first classes that I was doing as a mixology class, I did spill an entire shaker on my head Because, yeah, during the class, because I was like okay, we're shaking.

Lila:

I'm like learning how to shake while we're doing this and then it was the second drink and I didn't kind of put it on tightly enough and it literally I was like completely soaked you baptized yourself. Yeah, in a cocktail. So that was my kind of one of my craziest virtual mishaps.

Deb:

Okay, but I love that. You were like I can do that and I will figure it out, Right, Everything's figureoutable, Everything. And even though you know you're not a drinker, you can still make like it's just like a. You know, a vegan can be working the grill right At a steak place, right, Same thing. So, yeah, that is so hilarious, Okay. So what was their response when you were like they're like, oh, you're a little wet now.

Lila:

So I didn't say anything. I like everyone was busy and I just was like sitting there.

Deb:

They come back and they're like oh, it's all wet.

Lila:

Yeah, I was just like. I hope people don't notice that I'm covered in this drink, but okay, great Time to go.

Deb:

Okay, show must go on. Show must go on always. Yeah, you just keep going. That's awesome, that's hilarious. Okay, as you guys know, I love Giesen 0% Wines. Their Sauvignon Blanc is my go-to on a regular basis. They recently launched a delicious sparkling brute 0%, which is quickly becoming a fan favorite. I am so proud to have Giesen as the exclusive non-alcoholic wine sponsor of the Thriving Alcohol-Free Podcast.

Deb:

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Deb:

My personal favorite, although I do love them all, is the Sauvignon Blanc, coming in at only 100 calories for the entire bottle. And, not to be missed, the other members of their 0% family the Riesling, the Premium Red Blend, the Rosé, the Pinot Gris. With Giesen 0% wines, there's a de-alcoholized wine for everyone and every occasion. Give Giesen a try and let me know how much you love it. And if you want to meet their winemaker, go back to episode 33 of the podcast, where Duncan Shuler joined me to share about the Giesen story. Okay, yeah, so how's it been sharing on Instagram and what do you? What do you like about sharing on social?

Lila:

Yeah, I mean I appreciate that I'm able to kind of like it's a place for people who take my workshops to land and continue to kind of engage and check out recipes and stuff. So I do appreciate being able to kind of have a small but growing community of people who are interested in the kind of DIY, herbal, functional mocktail realm. And I also enjoy just sharing what I'm doing and behind the scenes of my business, because I think it's really interesting to see behind the scenes of other people's business. So it's mostly me packing boxes and on the computer but it's still really fun and schlepping things and schlepping that's a word.

Deb:

I know that word schlepping. Let's throw in a little Yiddish for everybody. Yeah, totally, that's hilarious. Okay, I'm so fascinated. Yes, and the behind the scenes is what people love to see, right, it's like how's that happen? Even if it's just like basic, like packing a box and what's going into it, and, yeah, so has your classes. Has it changed a lot since, like all the businesses now, I mean since 2014,. There's so much more now available, right, yeah.

Lila:

Yeah, I mean, I developed my corporate mocktail class fairly recently, so it's been kind of like incorporating things, but I continue to evolve and change it as I learn new things and, you know, new products come out that I'm like really enjoying. But I'm continuing to just evolve. I have my basic mocktail mixology class. I now created my tea-based one, and so I'm creating additional workshops in the non-alcoholic beverage realm, in addition to the things that I've been teaching for a long time, like kombucha brewing and elixir making. So I love all beverages.

Deb:

That is so cool. Do you normally like I know, like I have like three drinks around me at all times there's a sparkling water, there's a green drink in the morning, maybe a hot tea? Do you what's like, what's at your hand, like that you can reach for all the time?

Lila:

Totally, I'd say. I definitely have a sparkling water, I definitely have some sort of like tea whether that's herbal tea or, you know, black tea and then I probably have something maybe like there's, maybe like a little treat, sometimes maybe a drinking chocolate which is what I make in my elixir class that has herbs in it. A drinking chocolate? I've never heard of such a thing.

Lila:

It's exactly what it sounds like it's like a melted down chocolate bar, except it's usually made with 100% chocolate. So you add in sugar, you use some sort of milk and then it creates this really rich, thick beverage. That then I think, makes a really great place to add herbs, because usually powdered herbs don't go really well in tea or in kind of like a thinner liquid. But when you have fat and the texture of that like thick chocolate, I add in turmeric and ashwagandha and maybe some kava powder or maybe something energizing, like some rhodiola or some other, like energizing adaptogen, and then I sip that and it's like a little cup of that, so very, very good, like a little teacup, like a little.

Lila:

Exactly, Exactly. Oh, like in the energy is kind of like like a nice hill instead of like a crazy mountain, like coffee.

Deb:

Dropping off with coffee or something. Okay, so I feel like it does give me energy.

Lila:

So I like it, like in the morning or like midday, where I couldn't drink a coffee in the middle of the day because then it would keep me up. But chocolate, I feel like I can go to sleep. Fine, you know later.

Deb:

Okay, we're gonna need the recipe.

Lila:

I'll send you the recipe.

Deb:

Yeah, that is yeah, we're gonna have to talk about workshops. Okay, how did you get connected to like Amazon, all these names I listed Google. How are you doing classes at these places? Well, which you know, they have kitchens, they have everything there, right? So why not have some mixology classes?

Lila:

So people mostly have found me on Google. I've been particularly well known for my kombucha classes, since I've been doing them for so long, so I'm like one of the first. If you search corporate kombucha class, I am number one. Really Uh-huh. I taught my first corporate class in 2017. And I was like this is the thing a ready audience. I'm helping to give non-alcoholic options at work, which is really alcohol centered around happy hours and socializing. So I started to specifically nourish that and had done that on the side, as well as my workshops, for many years until 2019, when I, like, had started running my business full time.

Deb:

So full time? Okay. And what did you do before this? What were you doing?

Lila:

Yeah, so I was, you know, hopping around to different, finding my way in the wellness world from herbs working at an herb store for, like other wellness practitioners, like a chiropractor, I worked at a functional neurology clinic, like everything kind of in the health realm, and I just found that, like I love running my business, I feel like I get to be creative every day and I always had some sort of business, I think, honestly, since middle school. I had a gene distressing business in middle school.

Deb:

Okay, let's hear about the gene distressing business. I love a good entrepreneur. Yes, yeah, like, yeah, it used to snow, I grew up in Philadelphia with snow and I'd wake up and I'd be like I can make $100. Today I'm going to go shovel like the neighbor's driveway and their walkway, yeah, okay. So you have a keen distressing business. So you have the entrepreneurial spirit since you were little, totally.

Lila:

Yeah, that is correct. I found that there was a need for a less expensive option for distressed jeans, rather than buying them at Abercrombie, which was really popular when I was in middle school, and I was like here are my paint swatches, I will rip your jeans and sew them back up, I will splatter them with paint and I charged like $5 a pair of jeans. But yeah, that was my first of many businesses.

Deb:

I was making banks Sixth grade and you were like, yeah, roll, that's so awesome, I love that, I love it, love it, love it. Okay, so are you having the best time ever now? Do you feel like a kid in a candy store or a kombucha store that you get to do this?

Lila:

all the time. Now I really do. I mean, I just feel very enthusiastic about non-alcoholic drinks, no matter what form they are, and really empowering people to make things at home and giving them the skills and the tools to do that. And now that there's so many amazing non-alcoholic products out there, it's really easy to choose your own adventure of do you just want to open a can and drink something? I've got my favorites, or do you want to craft something that takes days and you're fermenting things and you're making syrups and different stuff. So I'm very excited.

Deb:

I love that. Choose your own adventure. Okay, so what are a couple of your favorite RTDs, your favorite ready to drinks, if you don't mind sharing? The audience would love to know what you love.

Lila:

So I definitely I love bitter things. So the aperitifs, so I love Gia the. They're ready to drink.

Deb:

Yeah, it's so good, yes, it's so good.

Lila:

And herbal, functional are some of my favorites. So, Gia, I really also like Apploves. I think that they have done theirs really really well.

Deb:

I just tried those, like a couple of weeks ago. It's so delicious Both of the cans I got. Maybe they have more than that. I tried two of the cans so delicious. Okay, sorry, I interrupted you. Yes, I agree wholeheartedly.

Lila:

And then I really like De Soie. Just got those. Okay, I think that I'm really looking for complexity. I'm looking for functional ingredients and something that is not too sweet. So those are my criteria.

Deb:

Actually, I think I have all of those and maybe when before our episode comes out, I'll do a little video with those and share that those were your favorites and that we chatted about it. I love that. Yeah, I haven't tried the Dessois. Is that how you say, dessois?

Lila:

I haven't tried those, I think, yeah, I just got them.

Deb:

I haven't tried them yet. I need to put them in the refrigerator. But the Gia I love, or how do you say it?

Lila:

I don't know. I say Gia, but I don't know. I say everything wrong.

Deb:

I mean literally, if it's going to be said, I'm probably saying it wrong, but maybe I'll do a little video and just share those hands because it's nice to have. Yeah, choose your own adventure. And if you don't want to mix, you don't want to ferment I don't necessarily, well, but like fermenting this, like so yeah, that's a whole other I can muddle like a mother, but I can't do anything with the mother that's supposed to be in. Right, the kombucha isn't there, mother in there. What is that? That's in the apple cider vinegar?

Lila:

the kombucha mother is also known as a scoby, which is an acronym that stands for symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast scoby so do you mail that?

Deb:

out to people you, you mail them scobies.

Lila:

Yeah, so I figured out how to pack them. Initially they were spilling everywhere because, I don't know, I'd never shipped a scoby before. But then I figured out that then I mail them in basically heat seal bags. So if you have like a vacuum sealer for food, instead of vacuum sealing it I just kind of heat seal it and it works super well in the mail. So I put the SCOBY in there, I put some starter liquid, some kombucha in there, and then I ship them out. I also sell these. If people are interested, we could include that as well.

Deb:

Perfect, okay, your website is lilavolkas. com, l-i-l-a. We'll put put this in the show notes v-o-l-k-a-s. com, and then your instagram is the same. It's just that. That's your instagram handle, right? So make sure you're following along um with lila what she has going on, and I am so happy to meet you. I really like it is really an honor to have you on today. So thank you for for being my guest and for sharing your story and everything really appreciate appreciate it.

Lila:

It's been a pleasure. Thanks, Deb.

Deb:

Big time cheers to you for tuning into the Thriving Alcohol-Free Podcast. I hope you will take something from today's episode and make one small change that will help you to thrive and have fun in life without alcohol. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social, send up a flare or leave a rating and a review. I am cheering for you as you discover the world of non-alcoholic drinks and as you journey towards authentic freedom. See you in the next episode.