Alice Cooper, 76, Says Rockstar Life No Longer Means Drugs Backstage — Except 'Bengay, Advil, Tylenol' (Exclusive)

• Alice Cooper, who has been sober for 42 years, launched an alcohol-free cocktail, the Sex, Drugs, Rock & Dry Cocktail, with WhistlePig

• The icon, 76, says that he liked the idea of "outwitting whiskey," which was his beverage of choice when he drank

• Cooper says "rock ‘n’ roll is more of an attitude" — and no one has ever called him a "wimp" for not drinking

No one rocks quite like Alice Cooper. But as the shock rock icon, 76, tells PEOPLE exclusively, “You don't have to be drunk to be punk.”

Cooper — who has been sober for 42 years — tells PEOPLE, “When I used to drink, my drink was whiskey and Coca-Cola. I used to be the Dean Martin of rock ‘n’ roll. There was always a drink in my hand.”

Now the drink is non-alcoholic, the product of a partnership with WhistlePig: The Sex, Drugs, Rock & Dry Cocktail is an alcohol-free maple old fashioned that comes paired with a rye-infused vinyl of Cooper’s album, Breadcrumbs, with 100% of proceeds going to Giving Kitchen, which provides assistance to food service workers.

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“I like the idea of actually outwitting whiskey, because it had a hold on me for quite a long time,” Cooper tells PEOPLE, explaining that  “the idea of outwitting it and laughing in its face” appealed to him.

The ”School’s Out” singer tells PEOPLE that when he first got sober, friends who could “socially drink” would avoid alcohol around him, but as he shared, “I went, ‘Guys, It's different with you. You guys can have a drink, two drinks, and then leave it. When I was drinking, I had to have another one and another one and another one and another one.’ If you're in my situation, I can't have any alcohol.”

Since getting sober, Cooper tells PEOPLE, “I have absolutely no desire to ever put alcohol in my mouth again, or any drug."

And abstaining from alcohol hasn't ruined his rockstar reputation.

“But I’ve never once had anybody come up to me and go, ‘Wow, what a wimp,’ “ he says, saying that while sobriety “sounds like it would be anti the character of rock ‘n’ roll …  rock ‘n’ roll is more of an attitude. You don't have to be drunk or high to be a rocker, you know. It's just an attitude.”

That’s changed since the ‘70s, he tells PEOPLE, saying, “you didn't hire a guy unless he was high or drinking with you.”

“[But] The [Rolling] Stones would not be around if they were still doing what they were doing in the '70s, and neither would I,” says Cooper, who begins his Too Close for Comfort world tour on Jan. 31.

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“Party like a rock star, that was always the phrase,” the "Poison" singer continues. “We all went through that. All of my friends died at 27. You know, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin— I used to sit and drink with them and get high with them.”

Now, as Cooper says, his fellow rockers are all sober. “Johnny Depp is my guitar player in the Hollywood Vampires. We’re all sober and he's sitting there and he has an alcohol-free Heineken. And he's vaping. So he's got phony cigarettes and phony alcohol, and I told him he was gonna have a phony heart attack.”

When asked about his iconic cameo in 1992's Wayne’s World — which lampooned the wild rock star lifestyle — Cooper says it’s “a takeoff on a Hollywood version of what happens backstage" which “died in the '80s, but yes, it was the eternal party backstage.”

These days, he says, “the drugs backstage are still there — except they’re Bengay, Advil, Tylenol. All the rockstar drugs are now at Walgreens.”

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