Alcohol-free booze is becoming big business

I remember the same happening in Poland ca. 15-20 years ago (I’m not sure if that’s still the case).

Another way of sneaking in alcohol into ads relied on linguistic jokes, e.g.:

You’ll get an ad telling people that Bols (a vodka brand) sponsored a boat with the same name.

In Polish łódka Bols (the Bols boat, /wootkah/) sounds almost the same as wódka Bols (Bols vodka /vootkah/). Given the stronger association between the word Bols and vodka it requires a conscious effort not to hear the implied word vs what is actually spoken.

Sinister, but gotta admire the chutzpah.

I few weeks back I saw some ads for cocktails with alcohol free gin (in Italy IIRC)

Pretty sure you see Heineken Zero ads all over some Formula 1 tracks for the same reason.

This is what pisses me off about non-alcoholic products. They don't take all the duty out of the price of the new product.

Just being able to hold a drink in your hand as social cover is part of what you’re buying. At a Christmas party, you just want to have what appears to be the peppermint Christmas-themed drink in your hand like everyone else, even if you’re pregnant or don’t drink for whatever reason. People will stop asking if they can get you a drink. Not everyone buying an NA drink cares about perfectly emulating the sensation of alcohol entering the body.

Mostly I just use it for cocktails but I’ve found a couple of na “spirits” that I’ll drink over ice like a real alcohol. Particularly the Free Spirits Bourbon and the Almave Amber.

https://drinkfreespirits.com/collections/non-alcoholic-spiri...

https://www.almave.com/

Maybe not the gin (did not like it to begin with), but alcohol-free wine, yes. The taste still gives some memories of ritual and celebration without associated health damage. Good likeness of wine, turns out, is not very cheap. You can buy a cheap non-alcoholic wine that taste something like kombucha or grape juice, but really good brands are constantly sold out in our local alcohol-free drink shop, despite being 2-3x the price of the real wine.

> alcohol-free gin is maybe good for cocktails, but does anybody really drink it in its pure form?

That depends on what the zero proof spirit is aiming for. I've found some of them are not very good alone because they're trying to replicate a particular flavor in the cocktail, but others (ex. Monday's Gin) are great with just ice. We keep a bottle of it around for a fun evening beverage.

The "savory non-tea zero proof beverage" for the evening is a difficult thing to come by. That's the space these fake spirits are trying to fill.

I recommend trying alcohol free gin & tonic. It’s very competitive with ‘normal’ soft drinks like Pepsi & Fanta, especially if you’re looking for variety.

Oh absolutely. At most restaurants, my options are water, badly stale tea, a variety of sodas, and alcoholic beverages. All of the interesting drinks are poisoned. I want to enjoy the variety and see what flavors and experiences are out there without the poison, and the N/A menu is my key to actually doing that. Suddenly I can try "real drinks" and get all of the fun with none of the nauseating headache.

Why wouldn't I want to do this?

Manufacturers made alcohol-free versions of their products so that governments wouldn't step in to regulate them. They can claim to be responsible product owners who offer low-alcohol versions of their drinks to keep people safe from harm, which is true to an extent, which means governments don't force them to do things to be safer in other ways (reduced alcohol on main brand offerings, proof-based taxation, etc.)

They don't really make these things because they're a good idea. They do them because it's cheaper than not doing them.

It’s a topic that comes up quite often in recent years, so I don’t know what you mean by “not talked enough in health”.

The Surgeon General recently issued a warning about it, plenty of popular science articles about how even small amounts are unhealthy, and younger generations are drinking quite a bit less.

you're assuming the increase in non-alcoholic drink sales is due to a decrease in alcoholic ones.

Maybe some drinkers are triggered by the idea that not everyone wants to drink alcohol?

It’s a bizarre attitude but one that I’ve certainly encountered before.

Another booming segment is energy drinks. I wonder if these two have a common root, that is a yet-to-be-(re)discovered market for soft drinks marketed towards adults. In the region's early history that niche was occupied by kvass. It is still very popular in ex-Soviet countries, but not so much in the CEE area.

In the last 15 years or so 0% beer has improved from "sparkling piss" to something passable, I bet this explains at least part of it. Nowadays 0% Heineken is almost as good as regular Heineken - which means it is not that good, but you can keep a bottle in your hands and occasionally take a sip while you try to socialize.

Can confirm. Plus nowadays you can find 0% beers that are actually quite good and very similar in taste to a regular beer. In the past there were really only shifty ones.

Zero IPA is really good

From what I understand zoomers are more concerned about their health, at least more than previous generations. That's one of the good things that came out of "influencers": sport, nutrition, no smoking, &c.

https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/email/genz/2024/01...

I suspect it's not a decline in general health, it's more the fact that people not used to consuming large amounts of alcohol will have more trouble processing it...

Weed is legal in 2/3 the population states, unless a federal prosecutor doesn't like you and you have a squirrel hunting gun.

I drink because it's fairly well ingrained as a libation at this point as weed was highly illegal when I formed adult / adolescent habits.

The young ones will likely phase out alcohol simply because it no longer makes sense amongst their options for chemical relaxation.

Gen X here. Sometimes I don't want the calories. Sometimes I want to do things after having a beer, and the alcohol tends to make me feel lazy. Around here we tend towards pretty big beers, it's nearly impossible to get something with less than 5% ABV.

Decreased poison intake is not sad, actually.

Ah. Old and tired (false) equivalence of "alcohol free beer is like sex with a fake woman", or whatever alcoholics used to say.

STD-free sex maybe. I really don't drink anymore because I got tired of its negative aspects like weight gain, hangovers, doing stupid things, loss of self control, loss of productive time, etc.

I have a few Athletic beers in the fridge for when I get the craving for the taste of beer. It happens maybe once every few months when I'm doing something like grilling, but it usually only takes one to quench. I don't care if others drink, but it's really not something I care about much anymore.

It has an awesome effect of being able to more effortlessly spend time with friends, of whom 50% of them drink alcohol, in environments that are generally meant for alcohol drinking like cocktail bars and pubs. You’ll also be happy to know that NA cocktails and NA beers tend to have substantially less calories, so better for the “belly” than alcohol-based drinks.

Further, if you’re going to look at it through the lens you’ve chosen, I recommend just drinking water, which has been shown to have strong positive side effects without the downsides on calories or cost.