Editor’s Note: This writeup first appeared March 28 in the Insider edition of the BevNet Daily Briefing, a daily newsletter by Brewbound’s sibling publication BevNET.
U.S. adult non-alc (ANA) sales may be closing in on the $1 billion mark, but many bars – including some of the country’s upper echelon – aren’t on board yet with slanging zero-proof cocktails.
“A lot of bartenders treat non-alcoholic drinks the way chefs treated having a vegetarian option on the menu 20 years ago,” said Alex Jump, co-founder of Focus on Health, which advocates for the wellbeing of on-premise workers, and provides no/low consulting.
We last checked in with Jump in 2023, when the Forbes “30 under 30 Food and Drink” alumni was fresh off her company’s cross-country multi-brand sponsored no/low cocktail tour, now in its third year. The number of ANA options for bars has shot up since then, many now backed by big spirits company distribution, but that doesn’t mean access is always a breeze. It’s part of why busy cocktail bars are still slow to hop on the trend, according to Jump.
Many ANA brands will gladly ship their products to bars and many distributors carry ANA spirits now, but Jump hears that often distributors don’t keep those products in stock. So giving precious menu placement to one of those brands is a risk and for a busy bar manager, just the one added step of ordering from elsewhere is enough of a deterrent.
It’s also still challenging to innovate a thoughtful, NA cocktail, requiring more understanding of balance and flavor, added Jump. Even direct replacement products, like a non-alc tequila, have preservatives or added sugar that could throw off a margarita recipe.
Education, of course, is key for ANA brand owners to help push through that challenge, including making sure ambassadors are tasting bartenders on NA spirits the right way (in a cocktail or soda water) versus straight. But that’s also not enough anymore because, well, we’re still in the early era of ANA … but past the Tofurky stage.
“It’s making bartenders want to use a product that they can wax poetically about to a guest,” Jump added.
That may bode better for newer NA spirit innovations that have a sense of place or take a craft approach. Just like with spirits, cocktail bartenders want to tell a story about how something was made, what it was made with and why they chose it.
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