Mid-Year Resolution Check
Making it halfway through my year of sobriety
On the last day of 2022, I haphazardly decided to stop drinking alcohol in 2023. As I approach the midpoint in my year-long sobriety experiment, it seemed like the right moment to pen a post examining the changes afoot in the alcoholic beverage market and highlighting some success stories of new entrants in the low-ABV space.
I’ve become one of the millions of people that has catapulted the sale of low- and no-alcohol beverages to over $11 billion in market value. In 2018, the same segment was worth $8 billion.
While I’m an “abstainer” - for this year anyways - statistics show that 78% of people who consume low- or no-alcohol products also drink alcohol. People who do not drink at all represent a much smaller 18% of the low/no market.
Something interesting started to emerge in Europe last year, according to the IWSR. Historically, most people deciding to curtail their consumption cited health and wellness benefits. More on that in a moment. But now, economic worries seem to be creeping into how consumers view and purchase alcoholic beverages. For example, cutting down instead of trading down appears to be playing out as follows:
People are reducing the number of occasions where they consume alcohol, such as by skipping after-work drinks.
People are drinking less or increasingly combining low/no-alcohol beverages (like soft drinks) with alcohol.
The IWSR identified that markets like the UK and Germany where economic confidence is low tended to show more price sensitivity and higher interest in moderating alcohol consumption. This stands in stark contrast to the conventional belief that beer and spirits are particularly robust through periods of economic upheaval.
Meanwhile, higher income consumers in the US, Canada, and Australia continue to facilitate dynamic growth in low/no-alcohol products.
In a bit of a startling reversal, the public health line on alcohol consumption sharply reversed course this year. The World Health Organization now says, “there is no safe amount that does not affect health.”
Data from Europe shows that half of all alcohol-attributable cancers are caused by light and moderate alcohol consumption. The marketing treatment of red wine as cardioprotective and modestly useful in fighting type 2 diabetes persisted for about 15 years in popular culture. Remember resveratrol, the magic antioxidant in grape skins? This polyphenol was thought to be the genesis of the French Paradox, the explanation for why French people can eat buttery croissants without getting as much heart disease as we do in the United States.
But sadly, the latest WHO guidance indicates there is no safe threshold at which the downsides of alcohol’s carcinogenicity is inhibited and the once-touted health benefits of alcohol somehow prevail.
The ascent of zero-proof alternatives
Have you heard of Everleaf, Ghia, or Figlia? What about Lyre’s or Seedlip?
Taking cues from nature, Everleaf is designed to transport you to a mountaintop, a lush forest, or a refreshing Mediterranean landscape. This is apparently what happens when a conservation biologist becomes a bar owner. As you might expect, the ingredients are sustainably sourced.
Ghia was created as a spirit-free aperitif adapted for modern times. Their aperitif is a blend of white grape juice, yuzu, lemon balm, elderflower, gentian root, date, plum, acacia, rhubarb, orange, ginger, and rosemary. They also sell ginger, lime & salt, and original spritz to mix up the the perfect cocktail with “all of the spirit, none of the booze.”
Figlia is a non-alcoholic aperitif with a floral, bitter, aromatic profile. Sold in 750 mL bottles as well as 8 ounce cans with bubbles, the brand was created by Lily Geiger, who lost her father to alcoholism when she was 20.
Lyre’s, founded in 2019, is a UK-based company that produces around the world. The company is seeking to replicate the world’s most popular spirits in non-alcoholic format. They describe themselves as the world’s leading independent non-alcoholic spirits brand. Available in over 60 countries, their product is stocked in 20 of the world’s top 50 bars.
Seedlip is one of the OG non-alcoholic spirits startups. It is now majority owned by Diego. Crafted from herbs, spices, peels and barks, each batch takes six weeks to make.
As for my own journey…
It’s been much easier than expected. I don’t miss alcohol very much at all these days.
I did cheat during my trip to South Africa in March. I let myself drink champagne in business class, take advantage of the free mini bar in my wine country B&B, and drink Amarula over ice at sundown on safari. But as expected, it made the jet lag a lot worse. So after the first week of a daily drink or two, I decided that I felt much better without alcohol. I purposely avoided it for the rest of my trip.
I have some really nice bottles of wine in storage and last summer, I stocked up on some fun bottles of spirits during a cross-country road trip. In 2024, I’ll probably break my abstention. But it’s hard to know how I might feel in another six months. I certainly don’t expect any 12:01am benders.
If you’re considering your current relationship to alcohol, I can tell you with certainty that there has never been a better moment to be sober-curious.