Fashionable drink in outskirts of Stroud as an alternative (7)
I believe the answer is:
instead
'as an alternative' is the definition.
('instead' can be a synonym of 'as an alternative')
'fashionable drink in outskirts of stroud' is the wordplay.
'fashionable' becomes 'in' ('in' can be similar in meaning to 'fashionable').
'drink' becomes 'tea' (tea is a kind of drink**).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'outskirts of' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'stroud' with its centre taken out is 'sd'.
'tea' placed within 'sd' is 'stead'.
'in'+'stead'='INSTEAD'
(Other definitions for instead that I've seen before include "Alternatively" , "As a substitute" , "Rather - detains (anag)" , "In place (of)" , "for a change" .)