Cheers to Choice: Promoting Non-Alcoholic Options

Paul White had been thinking about getting a motorcycle for a few years. But living in Queens, and working for a record label in Manhattan, it didn’t feel like it made a ton of sense. Then he went on vacation with a buddy in Portugal. They rented Vespas and spent a day riding up the hilly, scenic highway from Lisbon to a nearby town called Sintra, where they watched the sunset from atop a cliff. It was magical.

“At that moment, something just clicked in my mind, and I was, like, ‘I'm gonna get a motorcycle license when I get back home,’” he says.

White is the kind of person who thinks deeply about everything he’s doing in life. He’s intentional about his choices and deeply comfortable pursuing interests—not because somebody else tells him to, but because they feel right for him. For example, his boxing trainer pushed him to buy a Harley. But Harleys not exactly being his style, White went for a Yamaha. This is the same attitude White, 36, brings to his social life. He loves restaurants, for one, everything from mom-and-pops to Michelin-rated restaurants. And he loves to go out and spend time with friends, including at bars. Over the last few years, one of the things White has become more intentional about is drinking.

The days of frequent happy hours and mindless beers are behind him. Now it’s more about moderation. In the past, in certain social contexts, White would always reach for an alcoholic beverage. “If I went to a bar,” he says, “I’d drink.” That’s no longer the case. Now White is less reflexive, and more conscientious about his choices. He knows he enjoys mezcal for the smoky flavor profile. But he also knows that he can have a great time socially and find equally interesting flavors without the booze. “Usually if I’m going to decide to drink, I’ll go one or two then I’ll pivot to a mocktail,” he says.

In this way, White is typical of a chic new generation of drinkers; people who are curating everything about their lifestyles, including their consumption of alcohol. Sipping a beverage continues to epitomize how we socialize with friends, network with colleagues, celebrate with family, and mark the end of a long day. But now drinking culture is characterized by two dominating factors: variety and intention.

The number of choices available to consumers like White has exploded, and people like him are taking full advantage—not necessarily by drinking more, either. According to recent research, 40 percent of people who are of legal drinking age are already moderating their consumption, and 26 percent report wanting to.

When Ryan Dolliver and his wife Elizabeth opened Palmetto, their Bushwick cocktail bar, back in 2019, they didn’t think much about the specifics of attracting customers. They created a space and a menu that reflected their values, and anticipated that the result would be enough to draw a crowd. At first, it was.

“There was a real set-in-stone factor that if you open a bar, people will come in and they will drink,” says Dolliver. “That was the business model and we didn't have any indication that that would change. But it has.”

Recently, Dolliver has noticed the clientele at Palmetto moderating their consumption. The types of people who used to have four or five full strength cocktails over the course of an evening are stopping at two or three. The menu, which is frequently updated, includes house cocktails, lower ABV drinks, adult non-alc drinks, beers both alcoholic and non-alc, and a natural wine list. Yet it’s not necessarily the drinks people are coming for. Or at least not only the drinks.

“What we’ve done is we’ve curated a more inviting environment,” says Dolliver. “More fresh cut flowers, more DJs, high tier staffing. More food in our cold food program, which has been really popular. And a place where people can come into a space and feel like they don’t have to order drinks necessarily in order to commune with their friends, because it’s about community.”

Bars like Palmetto are vital third spaces, still at the center of the social lives of New Yorkers. But whereas once budget shot and beer specials were the default, younger and more mindful consumers—consumers like Paul White—are looking for something beyond that. What else can a bar offer? “I think the vibe is different because socialization doesn’t wind around the pole of drinking,” says Dolliver. “It’s about having less and enjoying more.”

These days socialization is all about empowerment and choice. People want to be able to decide for themselves what and whether they are drinking, just like they do with other aspects of their lives, says Christine Hasbún VP, Head of Consumer Planning at Diageo North America, a global beverage company with a leading portfolio of alcoholic and adult non-alcoholic beverage brands. This is especially true of Millennials and Gen Zers of legal drinking age.

“I think people are kind of moving away from that very black and white, super hard line demarcation, and they're going into a place where there's more options, it's more fluid, it connects more with their lifestyle,” says Hasbún.

Diageo has embraced this concept by developing a “Cheers to Choice” bar it pops up at events around the country. The idea is to present consumers with a full range of options across the spectrum from alcoholic to lower alcohol to non-alcoholic.

“It’s an effort to meet people where they are and educate them about choices and a new way to think about consumption, whether they choose to have alcohol or not,” says Stephanie Childs, Executive Vice President of Corporate Relations, Diageo North America.

Just as a person would order gelato one day and drink an oat milk latte the following day without giving the switch from dairy to a dairy alternative a second thought, they might have a Negroni one day and a non-alcoholic Guinness 0 the next; or even on the same night. The trend of alternating between alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks is called zebra striping—and it’s growing in popularity. According to recent research, 94 percent of consumers who buy adult non-alc products also purchase beer, wine, or spirits containing alcohol. It’s not an either/or situation.

But it might just be a better situation. Take Gen Z. “There’s this belief that Gen Z is drinking less. Or they’re not drinking. Or they hate alcohol. “That’s actually not exactly true,” says Hasbún. “What they’re doing is drinking less beer and wine, and instead they’ve embraced spirits and cocktails.”

Case in point: The cheap beer and a burger of the previous generation—or the drunken, stumbling slice of pizza—has been replaced by the New York Happy Meal, an adult version of the treat consisting of a martini and french fries. “We’re living in a world where we’ve got people coming into alcohol with an expectation that they can choose to not drink more, but drink better,” says Hasbún. “It’s this realization that you can deliberately control what you consume.”

And as for moderation? That’s not just Gen Z or Millennials either. It’s a trend that spans generations. Nor is it an entirely new thing.

Leslie Sloane started getting the asks way back in 2018. She thinks it began with her tech customers—most of the new trends in her business usually do. Sloane runs an event planning firm with two decades of experience putting on major functions in New York, mostly for corporate clients like law firms, banks, and, yes, tech companies.

Back then, the demand for adult non-alc options alongside a full bar was relatively novel. It would come from some clients, but only some. But Sloane quickly realized that it would not remain that way: she started stocking non-alc beer options, and asking bartenders to come up with specialty non-alcoholic cocktails to go alongside specialty cocktails with alcohol. These days offering an adult non-alcoholic program is standard operating procedure. “Not everybody comes to a party necessarily wanting the same thing,” says Sloane.

But everybody comes to a party wanting to feel like it’s for them. That means in addition to having adult non-alc options at the bar, Sloane often offers a non-alc option among the passed drinks at the start of her events to help alleviate the crush at the bar for guests, whether they are drinking alcohol that night or not. After all, one of the keys to a successful party is making sure that all your guests feel hosted, Sloane says. And if they don’t feel empowered to choose what’s right for them on a particular evening, they won’t.

Paul White, for one, is all about empowerment. He wants to be thoughtful about the choices he makes on any given night. He says he appreciates non-alc cocktails in part because they offer him a better option than “club soda with a lime jammed into it.” They make him feel like he’s participating in spirit, even when he is not participating in spirits.

Of course, there are some nights when having an alcoholic beverage is exactly the choice he wants to make. White thinks back to a recent trip to Singapore. (Travel, in addition to boxing and riding his Yamaha, being one of the hobbies he’s picked up.) He and his friends found themselves at a world-renowned bar called Jigger and Pony. That night, there was no way he was going to pass up the chance to order off the cocktail menu. “In my mind it’s part of a larger experience,” he says. “I try not to limit myself so much and be so austere about it. It’s about moments.”