I can sip bacardi like it's your birfday.

So one of my best friends, soul sisters, and roommates from college turns 23 at the end of the month and naturally, I want to be there with her and the rest of our friends celebrating for the occasion. Again, this is another opportunity for me to "practice" being in a public, social situation where drinks, food, and a shit ton of dancing will be had. I did my homework and spoke to my nutritionist about possibly trying to reintroduce alcohol. Yes, alcohol. Initially we both thought that trying organic beer may be a good option, but the more I looked into the possibility, I found that if organic beer was not made with wheat, it was made with yeast. I went back and forth looking at this website and that, but without fail, there was always something (even in organic beer) that I couldn't have- like molasses and other random non-MRT tested ingredients. 

I began taking a peek at the possibility of reintroducing hard alcohol. To my surprise, I found that there are a lot of BOTH gluten and yeast free hard-alcohol options! RAPTURE! Some of the liquors included select brands of rum, vodka, gin, and bourbon. The general consensus is that it's important to buy domestic brands of hard alcohol, as it is the law that all domestic alcohol must be pasteurized and filtered. This is not necessarily the case in some countries overseas. If you choose to go with imported liquor, do your homework first! 

My liquor of choice has always been vodka. I've never particularly enjoyed any other kind of hard alcohol. Luckily for me, vodka is considered to be the purest of all hard liquors, so it's recommended for those of us who are extra sensitive and "thirsty." Apparently research also shows that vodka is least likely to give you a horrific hangover, which is always a plus. 

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My guess is, I will probably reintroduce vodka. While Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum is both a gluten and yeast free option, I personally don't think it goes well with anything other than Coke. I can't drink Coke, so that takes care of that. I can mix vodka (unflavored) with soda/seltzer water and some lemon or lime. It's important to go the unflavored route with so many sensitivities. If it's that big of an issue for you and you NEED your flavored beverage, always do your research to make sure it's free of your reactive ingredients. While my beverage of choice doesn't sound unbelievably tasty, I think I can make do. I plan to reintroduce alcohol a week before getting together with my friends just to see how my body handles the change. After three months without consuming so much as a sip of alcohol, I'm sure I'll be down for the count as soon as it hits my lips. 

I'm sharing a bunch of links that I found useful in my research. 

Celiac Sisters
Gluten free alcohol
Top 10 yeast free alcoholic drinks
Yeast free alcoholic beverages 
More yeast free alcoholic beverages
My gluten free USA
Gluten free for life- which ones are safe?
Gluten free booze
Gluten free beer
Gluten free ORGANIC beer

I had to do a lot of back-and-forth searching with my research. I'd find a gluten free brand of vodka and then research if it was yeast free, as well. A bit time consuming, yes, but extremely important! For those of you with fewer sensitivities it will be much easier to find something that works for you.

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