One NA-groni, Please
What if you could enjoy one of your favorite cocktails, but remain completely sober while doing so? You can! Welcome to the world of non-alcoholic spirits.
Chloe Conway
You wake up to six missed calls, and a chilling voicemail. On top of that, you can’t find your wallet, or remember which of the five bars you might have left it at. Congratulations! You’ve done it again. You blacked out.
Now, you make the conscious decision to temporarily give up alcohol. It dawns on you… You live in New York City! How are you possibly going to stick with it?
Recent trends in the beverage industry have shown that non-alcoholic solutions are becoming more and more common. “The increasing growth of non-alcoholic beverage trends across the U.S. is being reflected in sales figures. Between August 2021 and August 2022, total dollar sales of non-alcoholic drinks in the US stood at $395 million, showing a year-on-year growth of +20.6%” (NielsenIQ).
Taking a look at some businesses in lower Manhattan, this checks out.
Bartenders at Hekaté, a “Café and Elixir Lounge,” use alcohol substitutes in most of their mocktails. Hekaté sits above Tompkins Square Park in the East Village, and it opened less than a year ago. Home to the “NA-groni,” there is no alcohol in the entire bar.
Abby Ehmann, the owner of Hekaté, says that they serve various groups of individuals in the bar.
“Almost everyone that comes in here is sober, but for different reasons,” says Ehmann. “There may be health reasons, recovery reasons, religious reasons. Some people have allergies, and we have pregnant women who like to come in.”
Hekaté has a range of drink options for these individuals. For $12, you can even get yourself “piña colada,” sans the rum.
You might read the words “piña colada,” and then “sans the rum,” and question why someone would want to drink the non-alcoholic version of a fruity, frozen cocktail typically served in tropical oases. Fair enough. You should ask yourself, though, is the glory of piña coladas in the rum, or is it in the vacation destinations that are often associated with them? The beloved drink can be found at practically every beachfront resort, most notably those in Puerto Rico, where it originates. Getting drunk off of a piña colada there might be a very different experience than getting drunk off of one here.
If you enjoy the taste of rum, however, Ehmann throws Ritual, a rum alternative, in its place.
Ritual is one of many brands offering non-alcoholic “alternatives,” and it has staked a claim in the growing “alcohol alternative” market. A bottle of Ritual spiced rum alternative looks like your average bottle of liquor, but it is “zero proof.”
Still, 750 mL of the drink will cost you about $30 on the Ritual website. That’s almost double what 750 mL of Captain Morgan is listed for on Target’s website.
Ritual carries other “liquor replacements,” too, for tequila, whiskey, and gin, all of which run for the same price.
Spirited Away is another non-alcoholic business in the city that carries Ritual, but Spirited Away is a bottle shop. It is known as being America’s first “booze-free bottle shop,” and it opened right in the midst of the pandemic. The shop sits in the heart of SoHo, and all sorts of non-alcoholic solutions can be found here, even non-alcoholic “bitters.”
Mihir Kelkar started working as a beverage consultant at Spirited Away in April of last year. He has experience in both the non-alcoholic and alcoholic industries, having held bartending and restaurant managerial positions prior to his work at Spirited Away.
“Spirited Away is very intimate, and consultative,” said Kelkar. “You can better assess needs, desires, wants, restrictions, and what it is that brings people into non-alcoholic bottle shops.”
Kelkar also made a point out the presence of people in this community that are not sober for addiction recovery reasons. “There is a major emphasis on education,” says Kelkar, “It’s about empowering the individual with specific information that they need.”
Still, at Spirited Away, the price for Ritual remains. So why drink a non-alcoholic alternative? If alcohol can be cheaper, and leave you with a dopamine hit, what’s the allure?
Non-alcoholic bars and bottle shops tailor to people who cannot have, but also choose not to have, alcohol. Non-alcoholic bars create bar scenes with no alcohol in the mix, while a non-alcoholic bottle shop might help someone imitate a scene of an after-work living room drink. Some do thoroughly enjoy the taste of alcohol, and the choice is in the hands of the non-alcoholic drinker.
Products and establishments like these may seem to be catering to a niché group, but even stores like CVS are selling products that promote health over drinking, such as Recess or Poppi. Brands like these promote drinking “alternatives” which may be beneficial to your health. Recess produces sparkling water infused with adaptogens, and Poppi produces soda alternatives infused with apple cider vinegar. Apple cider vinegar is known for its digestive benefits.
Brands like Ritual are also low in calories, so in terms of weight loss, liquor replacements could help. For a 1.5 oz pour, the Ritual tequila and gin replacements contain 0 calories, while the whiskey and rum replacements each contain 5. To compare, again, the rum replacement to Captain Morgan, Captain Morgan contains 85 more calories in the same 1.5 oz pour.
Some may also simply be sober-curious, especially after feeling the effects of drinking too much alcohol during the pandemic. According to NIH, alcohol sales went up 2.9% in 2020, the largest annual increase in over 50 years.
Still, we know that Ritual is relatively expensive, and at CVS, an individual can of Recess costs between $4 and $5 in New York City. That’s about $0.35/oz.
This might not matter to Gen Z, though, because according to NielsenIQ, “Younger Gen Z consumers are less interested in drinking alcohol than previous generations.” With influential celebrities like Bella Hadid coming out with non-alcoholic drinks, there is definitely potential for the recent trend to stick. Hadid and her partner in “Kin Euphorics,” Jen Batchelor, still sell their 8 oz “Kin Spritz” in 4-packs for about $16.
Some establishments may be uninfluenced by the going-ons of the outside world, though. When asked if they carry anything non-alcoholic, a bartender at McSorley’s Old Ale House in the East Village replied, “Coke, Diet Coke, 7-Up, and seltzer… That’s about it.” McSorley’s is one of the oldest pubs in the city, opened in 1854, and is known for only carrying two types of ale — pale and dark. McSorley’s didn’t allow women into the establishment until they were legally forced to do so in 1970, so this lack of interest in sobriety may not come as a shock.
Yet, Ehmann admits that Hekaté is not the only bar of its kind, and that we might see more non-alcoholic bars pop up.
“I know there are other non-alcoholic bars,” said Ehmann, “in Brooklyn.”
Ehmann may be referring to Minus Moonshine, a popular alcohol-free bar located in Prospect Heights.
Ehmann also owns another bar, though, Lucky, where she does serve alcohol, and it sits right across the street from Hekate. She has what she calls a “healthy balance.”
If other cities follow in New York’s footsteps, you may start seeing non-alcoholic establishments pop up right across the street from “regular” bars, across the country.
