Too Many Bars and Restaurants Still Aren't Adequately Catering to a Growing Sober (and Soberish) Clientele...
...leaving good money on the table. PLUS: Non-alcoholic drinks I like and want to see more of on menus. And an open thread where you can share about your experiences and favorite N/A beverages.
Several years ago, while waiting for friends to arrive at a restaurant, I sat myself down at the establishment’s popular but currently empty bar, ordered a seltzer with lime, then got scolded for it.
“I’m sorry,” the bartender said, “but if you’re going to just sit here and drink $2 seltzers, you can’t take up prime real estate.” I’d been planning to order wine with dinner, but not anymore. When my friends arrived and I told them what had happened, we decided to take our business elsewhere.
Now that I’m a full-on teetotaler, I’m reminded of that unfortunate experience every time I go to bars and restaurants that offer few—or worse, zero—non-alcoholic beverages on their menus. Too often when I eat out or meet friends for a drink, I find that there aren’t any mocktails, non-alcoholic beers, or dealcoholized wines—flavorful drinks I might enjoy, that pair well with food, and are priced respectably enough for me to feel as if I’ve earned my seat at the bar.
While I’ve been happy to discover some establishments on the hipper side responding to a recent rise in alcohol-avoidance, more of the places I’ve been to (at home, and while traveling to other states and countries) still don’t. They aren't keeping up with the boom in new N/A drinks, and the demand for them. It’s disappointing for me, and it’s bad business for them. Every time they provide only club soda, soft drinks, and juice for me to choose from, or ridiculously sugary mocktails, they’re not only letting me down, they’re leaving good money on the table.
I want to hear from you, too. Have you quit drinking—completely, temporarily, or intermittently? Or have you simply curtailed your alcohol consumption? How old are you? When did you stop, or take a break, or curtail? What motivated the change? Have there been benefits? What kinds of non-alcoholic alternatives do you enjoy and want to see more of? Do you, too, struggle to find them at establishments you frequent?
BACK IN 2018, at 52, I quit drinking. It wasn’t because of alcoholism or “substance use disorder” as it’s now called (although I’ve attended my share of CODA and Al-Anon meetings), but because in my 50s, something changed in the way my body responded to alcohol. Suddenly I was having a bad experience every time I took more than a few sips of wine, beer, or spirits. The most accurate way I can describe it: half-way through a glass of wine, I’d start to feel hung-over—woozy, and headachy. I’d never been much of a drinker to begin with, and always had a low tolerance. But now my body was registering the stuff as some kind of poison.
When I wrote about this here two years ago, in the comments many readers let me know that they were experiencing the same thing, usually beginning in midlife, and that they’d also resorted to teetotaling, in some cases entirely, like me, in others, partly, and in still others, occasionally—for instance observing “Dry January” or “Sober October.” There have been no studies yet on the effects of aging on alcohol tolerance, but I’ve encountered enough anecdotal evidence among my readership and my friends to believe that, for many people, the disadvantageous effects of drinking become more pronounced as we get older.
Read my January, 2023 Open Thread on giving up alcohol, with many great reader comments:
It turns out, though, that it’s not just Geriatric Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers drinking less or giving up alcohol altogether. According to Gallup research on Americans’ drinking habits, Generations Y and Z now rival older generations on this front. What’s more, studies show that even moderate alcohol consumption can lead to serious health issues, including cancer. Earlier this month Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called for cancer warnings to be issued for alcohol. I suspect that will lead to even more people at least curbing their alcohol intake. (Apparently, according to a piece I read in NYMag/The Cut, it’s also not great for your skin.)
That means there’s a vast and growing clientele for non-alcoholic beverages that are as thoughtfully considered as all the alcoholic drinks on any menu. And currently, at most bars and restaurants, that clientele is being largely ignored. In light of that, as a member of that ever-expanding cohort, I thought I’d share what I’d like to see more of on menus—suggestions that I hope many establishments will add to their offerings:
Mocktails that aren’t sickly sweet:
In Season 1, episode 5 of Lady Dynamite, Maria Bamford’s 2016-2017 comedy series on Netflix, her character goes to break up with an internet date, and while she waits for the guy to arrive is offered several brightly-colored, comically sugar-filled mocktails with names like “The Devil’s Sugar Bowl,” “Grandma’s Candy Store,” and “Glass of Sugar”—literally a mound of sugar in a glass. It’s funny because, sadly, it mirrors reality. Too often when I go out, I order interesting-sounding mocktails, only to discover they’re several times sweeter than the Shirley Temples of my childhood. I generally try to avoid too much sugar. And with food, I want a drink with a complex flavor—astringent, maybe vegetal, and with just a little bit of sweetness? Not a sugar bomb that threatens to put me into a diabetic coma.
Now and then, though, establishments get it right. While on vacation in Rincon, Puerto Rico, for instance, I enjoyed a mocktail at a restaurant called Estela made with just the right balance of lime, ginger, seltzer and hibiscus, with just a little bit of simple syrup. Because the flavor was complex, not super-sweet, it paired perfectly with my dinner.
At Mirador, an excellent wine and tapas bar near my home in midtown Kingston, New York, I’ve been thrilled to sometimes find on the menu a drink called “the Pura Cura,” a combination of carrot and orange juices spritzed with a chipotle spice-and-grapefruit salted rim.
Some places I’ve been to carry St. Agrestis’s Phony Negroni, a drink I enjoy despite having never liked real negronis when I was drinking. At home I prefer to cut it with seltzer or club soda, since it’s on the sweet side, and I’ve been happy to discover a few bars that offer it “spritzed,” over one of those big, square ice cubes you see these days in “rocks” glasses.
I also keep in my fridge cans of Free AF’s Apero Spritz (which I stumbled upon at Target)—a convincing facsimile of an Aperol Spritz that has “adaptogens,” although I fully don’t understand what those are and what they do—as well as an assortment of flavors of herbal-ish Ghia, and of Fever Tree’s Light Tonic, which I enjoy with a spritz of lime over ice. And I hear good things about Curious Elixirs, although I haven’t yet tried them.
And I really like TÖST, a sparkling beverage made with white tea, ginger, and white cranberry.
I’m a big fan of Spindrift’s seltzers infused with just a little bit of juice, although I tend to think of them more as a daytime drink. My favorites are Grapefruit, Grapeade, Tangerine-Clementine, Mango Black Tea, Pink Lemonade, and “Nojito”—made with lime juice and mint in a nod to mojitos. I’m eager to try their “Cosnopolitan” with cranberry, orange, and lime.
I know others enjoy non-alcoholic spirits, made by brands like Seedlip and Curious Elixirs. I wasn’t big on spirits when I drank, and so it’s probably no surprise I haven’t enjoyed the ones I’ve tried. But friends tell me they enjoy these!
Non-Alcoholic Beers
Some people in recovery from alcohol addiction don’t consider non-alcoholic beers a good option. Most of the beers earn their “N/A” distinction via the removal of alcohol, and a small amount remains. Some sober friends have also told me they skip beers (and wines and spirts) with the alcohol removed because they’re too reminiscent of the substances they’ve worked hard to quit. But for sober people who are okay with N/A drinks, and for people like me who are avoiding alcohol for different reasons, the profusion of N/A beers is a wonderful revelation.
Too many bars stock only Heineken Zero, if they carry any N/A beers at all, and it doesn’t hold a candle to the many N/A craft beers on the market, which now come in nearly as many varieties as regular beer.
Because I need to avoid gluten, I stick to Kit Brewing’s Hazy IPA, American Blonde, and Wheat beers, as well as Athletic Brewing Company’s “Upside Dawn” Golden lager, because the gluten has been removed from all of those. But each time I go to the local beer distributor, I’m encouraged by all the additional N/A beer offerings from brands like Brooklyn Brewery, Sam Adams, Blue Moon, Al’s, Best Day Brewing, Guinness, Industrial Arts Brewing’s “Safety Glasses,” and others. More N/A beer for everyone!
Hoppy waters—basically seltzers flavored with hops—are another N/A beer adjacent drink that I was happily introduced to at an art opening. They also happen to be low in calories, and in many cases calorie-free. Lagunitas’ Hoppy Refresher is probably my favorite, but I’ve also enjoyed Hop Lark’s various flavors.
De-Alcoholized Wine and Verjus
I tried a lot of de-alcoholized wines I didn’t like before I found a red I loved: Thomson & Scott’s Noughty Rouge. (I haven’t yet found a white or rose that I enjoy.) Too many of the red wines I’d first sampled were too watery, or too acidic. Now I order the Noughty Rouge by the case from a website called Boisson. Every now and then I give another wine there a try, and they do seem to keep getting better.
At Chleo, another excellent wine bar and restaurant in Kingston, I discovered a new drink: verjus and soda. Verjus, I learned, is a juice made from unripened, unfermented grapes. It’s tart and a little bit sweet, and spritzed with seltzer or club soda, it’s a great compliment to the wonderful wood-fired food on their menu. Now I order bottles of both red and white verjus from Boisson to enjoy at home.
I’M EAGER to see more of these options on bar and restaurant menus. Maybe the Surgeon General’s warning, and other new information suggesting that alcohol damages our health, will lead to more establishments increasing their N/A offerings. It wouldn’t only benefit me and the other growing ranks of non-drinkers, but also the establishments themselves.
How about you? Have you quit drinking—completely, temporarily, or intermittently? Or have you simply curtailed your alcohol consumption? How old are you? When did you stop, or take a break, or curtail? What motivated the change? Have there been benefits? What kinds of non-alcoholic alternatives do you enjoy and want to see more of? Do you, too, struggle to find them at establishments you frequent?
If you’re sober or considering sobriety, I highly recommend
, A.J. Dauliero’s excellent “recovery (and mental health) newsletter for everyone.” And check out the Sober Oldster series, our monthly collaboration with The Small Bow. I’m also a fan of: ’s ; ’s ; and ’s .Thanks for chiming in, those of you who choose to. 🙏💝 Have a great weekend!
- Sari
I committed to stop drinking for 90 days to support my ex. It opened a world for me. During that time, I began to understand how much I used alcohol and other things (food, shopping, etc.) to numb out. Without the alcohol, I began to connect to myself fully and begin to understand who I was and what I wanted out of life. I eventually left the husband, but not the sobriety. 90 days turned into one year, then two, etc. It's now been 15 years, and I've never been happier and more fulfilled.
Bookmarking for all the great suggestions here! Growing up in the rural Midwest and a Gen Xer, drinking alcohol was a rite of passage I didn’t really question. Fast forward to my 40s and I don’t enjoy alcohol or the hangovers and lack of sleep even one glass of wine brings, so I’ve experimented with making strong herbal teas and mixing them with various fizzy waters over ice. I’ve also been more interested in making shrubs mixed with seltzers - there is a particularly delicious beet shrub mixed with ginger beer (which can be too sugary so I go lite).
If the people I’m around give me a hard time or seem wary I’m not a party girl anymore, they probably aren’t my people anymore.