There is something missing from a new wave of bars opening around the world: alcohol.
Aimed at the growing number of people exploring sobriety, the bars serve drinks for adults as artisanal cocktails without the drink. At 0% Non-Alcohol Experience, a futuristic bar in Tokyo, customers can taste a mix of non-alcoholic white wine, sake and cranberries in a sugar-rimmed glass. On a recent night at the Sans Bar in Austin, Texas, customers gathered at outdoor tables, enjoying live music, bottles of non-alcoholic IPA and drinks like mockarite watermelon, which is made with an alternative to tequila.
Sober bars are not a new phenomenon. They first appeared in the 19th century as part of the temperance movement. But, although previous iterations were aimed at non-drinkers or people in recovery, the new locations welcome both the sober and the curious.
“A lot of people just want to drink less,” said Chris Marshall, founder of Sans Bar.
Marshall, who has been sober for 14 years, opened the bar after serving as an anti-addiction adviser. But he estimates that 75% of his customers also drink alcohol outside his bar.
“It’s just easier,” said Sondra Prineaux, a regular Sans Bar customer. “I don’t have to worry about leaving my car here and taking an Uber home. I will wake up without a headache. “
Withdrawal challenges like dry January – which started in 2013 – and a growing interest in health and wellness are behind the trend, said Brandy Rand, director of operations for the Americas at IWSR Drinks Market Analysis.
Last year, alcohol consumption in 10 key markets – including the United States, Germany, Japan and Brazil – fell by 5%, the IWSR said. The consumption of beverages with and without alcohol increased by 1% in the same period.
Alcohol still far outweighs alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Consumers in these key markets consumed 9.7 billion boxes of 9 liters of alcohol in 2020, compared with 292 million boxes of 9 liters of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. But Rand notes that global consumption of beer, wine and spirits with low and no alcohol is growing two to three times faster than overall alcohol consumption.
An explosion of new products is also driving sales. There are drinks from smaller manufacturers like the Chicago Zero Proof Ritual – which opened in 2019 and produces alcohol-free whiskey, gin and tequila – and big companies like Anheuser-Busch, which launched Budweiser Zero alcohol-free last year.
“I have the wonderful problem of many great options,” said Douglas Watters, who opened Spirited Away, a New York store that sells non-alcoholic beer, wine and spirits in November.
Watters said the blockade of the pandemic led him to rethink his usual pattern of ending each day with a cocktail. He started experimenting with non-alcoholic beverages and, in August, decided to open his store. Many of his clients are sober, he said, but others are pregnant or have health problems. Some are training for marathons; others just want to reduce alcohol consumption.
“There are many people, in the past year more than ever, thinking more critically about what they are drinking and how it makes them feel,” he said.
Joshua James, a veteran bartender, had a similar perception during the pandemic. After a stint at Friendship House, a substance abuse treatment center, he recently opened Ocean Beach Cafe, a non-alcoholic bar in San Francisco.
“I wanted to de-stigmatize the words addiction, recovery and sober,” he said. “There are a thousand reasons not to want to drink so much.”
The coronavirus, James said, “accelerated” the change in drinking habits of many people. But it also damaged the nascent non-alcoholic bar scene.
Some bars, like The Virgin Mary Bar in Dublin and Zeroliq in Berlin, have temporarily closed their doors due to regulations. Getaway, a non-alcoholic bar in New York, moved to a cafeteria to withstand the pandemic. Owner Sam Thonis added outdoor seating and hopes to reopen the bar this spring.
Billy Wynne, co-owner of Awake in Denver, is also selling coffee and bottles of non-alcoholic spirits in a showcase for the time being. But he plans to open the doors of an alcohol-free bar next month.
Wynne says that the price of drinks will be comparable to that of a normal bar. Alcohol is cheap, he said, and the process of extracting it from a few drinks makes it more expensive.
Alcohol delivery site Drizly charges $ 33 for a 700 ml bottle of Seedlip Spice 94, a non-alcoholic distilled beverage. This is little more than a 750 ml bottle of Aviation Gin, which costs $ 30. But Wynne thinks customers are willing to pay for crafts that go into a cocktail or a tasty wine, with or without alcohol.
He said his clients tend to be in their 30s or 40s, and most are women. Some say they have waited their whole lives for a bar like his to open.
“This kind of thing is not a fad,” he said. “People don’t wake up to the negative impact that alcohol is having on their lives and change their minds.”
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AP Video journalists John Mone in Austin, Texas, and Haven Daley in San Francisco contributed. On Twitter, follow @deeanndurbin_ap.