When Tolu Obikunle was an intern on Wall Street, she was frequently invited to go out for drinks after work. But filling up with spirits was actually something that brought Obikunle’s spirits down.
“I found myself pretending to drink just to fit in with my colleagues,” said Obikunle. “I loved being out and socializing, but I did not like the feeling of getting buzzed.”
Obikunle couldn’t keep her feelings bottled up for much longer, and pretty soon, she uncorked Sapiens Beverage Company, a line of fine, non-alcoholic wines.
The company turns out full-bodied reds, sparkling rosés, and chardonnays that could easily fool the discerning palate of a traditional wine connoisseur.
Their wines start out with alcohol in them but then undergo a complex dealcoholization process called “vacuum distillation.” The wine is heated to a boil, beginning the separation process. The alcohol is suctioned out while a careful balance of temperatures is kept to continue the dealcoholization process while preserving the wine’s flavors and aromas.
“It can get pretty darn scientific,” said Obikunle.
She is far from the only teetotaler who has turned a disinterest in alcohol into one very intoxicating success story.
Makers of non-alcoholic wine, beer, aperitifs, gins, vermouths, bourbons, rums, and an array of cocktails sophisticatedly crafted into adult drinks are drinking up some pretty impressive profits while lifting the spirits of nephalists.
The already $923 million global non-alcoholic industry (which includes coffee, tea, bottled water, fruit beverages, and other traditional non-alcoholic drinks) is expected to see more than 8 percent growth annually, according to Fior Markets, which tracks and predicts global market trends.
Tastewise, a research and analytics company specializing in the food and drink industry, recently reported that web searches for non-alcoholic beverages shot up nearly 50 percent in just the past year.
process extracts the alcohol. (Tatsiana Moon for American Essence)
A New Trend
The zero-proof adult beverage market has a relatively virgin niche, ranging from pregnant women to people with religious beliefs against consuming alcohol and those who like the taste of an alcoholic beverage without the alcohol.
Another relatively untapped audience is recovering alcoholics. In a blog Obikunle runs for people who have struggled with alcoholism, people from all walks of life candidly post about their experiences with alcoholism and their gratitude for the burgeoning non-alcoholic beverage industry.
One blogger, a financial analyst in Dallas who said she was “navigating sobriety as a millennial,” said her favorite way to celebrate now is “having a cute mocktail on a rooftop patio.”
Mocktail, one of the new buzz words for non-alcoholic drinks, is exactly the inspiration behind Pauline Idogho’s company based in Washington, D.C.
Different from alcohol-free wines that start out with alcohol in them, mocktails are the product of sophisticated mixology.
Each of Mocktail Club’s alcohol-less potables consists of no less than 11 different ingredients, infused with spices and fruits that contain tannins and antioxidants like pomegranate and cranberry—designed to produce the taste of traditional cocktails without any of their aftereffects. As a final step, the blends are pasteurized in lieu of adding artificial preservatives, to keep out any unhealthy ingredients.
The finished results are refreshing, ready-to-drink mocktails like Bombay Fire, accented with chili peppers and agave, and the brand’s signature Havana Twist, a multi-layered, mojito-like blend that is as black-dress-worthy as a Bloody Mary at the swanky St. Regis King Cole Bar.
“This is not a fad, it’s a new way of life,” said Idogho. “People have sobered up to the reality that if they drink too much, they don’t sleep well or they are not as alert—that this is a healthier way to sit at the adult table, drinking an adult beverage.”
Idogho started the company out of frustration after not being able to go out “for a couple” with the girls while she was pregnant, short of ordering up sparkling water with a lemon twist.
Bestsellers
Alcohol-free “drinks” are so popular that just a year after opening New York’s first booze-free liquor store, Dave Watters has already outgrown his Lower East Side storefront and is moving into a space twice the size of the original.
Watters opened Spirited Away in, of all places, Hell Square, Manhattan’s most inebriate district. Based on state liquor authority records spanning at least a decade, in this neighborhood, there are some 70 different venues within a three-square-block area to grab a traditional drink.
“They are making such complex drinks now,” said Watters, “including things like tequila alternatives. … They are doing such a good job mimicking the taste that it’s almost too close for comfort.”
For most of Watters’ customers, it’s not an “all or nothing” choice between alcohol and alcohol-free. “Maybe I want to go out and have one or two drinks and as the night goes on, switch to a non-alcoholic drink because I have an 8 a.m. … but want something more sophisticated than a Shirley Temple.”
Among his liquorless bestsellers are non-alcoholic distillates akin to hard liquor, but without the “hard.” Made in London, Seedlip is an especially big seller, with appealing blends such as ginger, lemongrass, and green cardamom, suitable for expecting and nursing mothers who are looking for some safe relief from morning sickness and the aches and sores that often come with breastfeeding.
Meant to be mixed with a tonic such as ginger ale, as the company suggests, Seedlip’s concoctions are crafted in distilleries with the same copper stills used to make traditional liquors like gin—only, instead of distilling grain alcohol with juniper berries as are used to make gin, Seedlip distills herbs and plants like peas, hay, thyme, rosemary, and spearmint.
The popularity of alcohol-free has also spilled over into the beer market. Brooklyn Brewery, long celebrated for its traditional beers, brews up four different kinds of non-alcoholic “cold ones,” including the Hoppy Amber and Hazy IPA, made using an “arrested fermentation” process that prevents the yeast used to make traditional beer from producing alcohol.
There are a wide variety of methods used to make alcohol-free beer, from using a membrane filtration system to filter out alcohol to a vacuum process similar to the one adopted by Sapiens Beverage to make its wines.
Even beer giants like Heineken and Molson are now marketing alcohol-free brewskies for their customers to chug down while watching a football game at home.
These refined, non-alcoholic concoctions are available at the brands’ online stores, in retail stores like Spirited Away, and even at supermarket chains like Whole Foods, which carries Mocktail Club’s array of mixes.
What Obikunle hopes is most attractive about the alcohol-free industry is cultivating an acceptance for going sober amid an often peer-pressure-riddled pastime of drinking only to get drunk.
“I picked the name Sapiens,” said Obikunle, “as an inspiring reminder that we are human without a need to conform with the embedded pressures in our culture that you have to drink alcohol in order to fit in.”
A previous version of this article misstated Mocktail Club founder Pauline Idogho’s name. American Essence regrets the error.This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.
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