Would You Prefer Your January Dry, Damp, or Wet? We Have Thoughts.

When it comes to taste, the world of non-alcoholic beverages has changed, dramatically, seismically, massively, for the better. That’s a good thing, because right now more and more people seem to want less and less, at least when it comes to alcohol. 

In 2022, when Food & Wine profiled Bill Shufelt of Athletic Brewing, he predicted that, “Moderation is a trend that’s not going away anytime soon.” He was right, and how — Athletic is now valued at close to $800 million, made over 258,000 barrels of non-alcoholic beer in 2023, and the brewery’s retail sales grew over 50% last year. Shufelt and his partner, longtime brewer John Walker, cracked the code of making NA beer that actually tastes like beer. Now, it’s difficult to find a craft brewer who doesn’t make an NA option. 

Quality alcohol-free spirits effectively took off with the launch of Seedlip in 2014. For its products, after botanicals are macerated in alcohol to extract their flavors, vacuum distillation removes the booze. What’s left is taste, and nothing else. This is probably why NA vodka is a non-starter — vodka has no taste or aroma, by definition, so once you remove the alcohol you are left with … well, water. 

Many other brands have followed, and there are seemingly more each week. As a result, it’s a little bit of new frontier right now when it comes to NA spirits, with flavors, styles, and approaches heading in every direction, from versions of classic categories like gin and whiskey to more outré offerings. But the best of them are truly exciting. 

Why nonalcoholic wine remains complicated

Wine has proved trickier. The vast majority of NA wines are still tart, hollow-seeming mimicries of the real thing. Largely this is because wine is 12–15% alcohol or so, and removing that alcohol, by various arcane technical processes, leaves a textural hole. The issue often isn’t flavor so much as feel. But after tasting through dozens of NA wines recently, with a ton of misses but some real hits as well, there seems to be a handful of vintners — Johannes Leitz at Weingut Joseph Leitz in Germany, Aaron Pott and Stephanie Honig in Napa Valley with their Missing Thorn wines, Roberto Vanin at Bollé in Italy — who are closing in on the same kind of breakthrough that Athletic Brewing made with NA beer. 

I admit that as the executive wine editor at Food & Wine, I’m a big fan of actual wine: the real stuff, that has alcohol in it. It’s also the name of our publication. (“FOOD & NO WINE” sounds more like a command from a Puritan minister — or the Surgeon General, apparently — than something you’d actually like to sit down and read.) It would be weird if a place called Food & Wine weren’t at least somewhat pro-wine.

And yet, there’s no question that some alcoholic beverages exist primarily to get people buzzed. No one mixes Everclear and Kool-Aid in a trash can in search of nuances of taste. There’s also no question that alcohol can have deleterious effects on health (particularly when abused). But my personal feeling, shared by a lot of people over the 8,000 year history of wine, is that the social, cultural, and sensory pleasures of drinking a glass of wine, or having a beer or a cocktail with family or friends — in a responsible way — are valid. These are traditions, after all, that stretch back thousands of years, and have both historic and emotional resonance for people. Jesus turned water into wine, to give one example, not into an alcohol-free IPA.

Many things we enjoy on a regular basis aren’t risk-free. A juicy hamburger? Bad idea. Aspartame? Eek. Stepping into a crosswalk in New York? Good lord, don’t try that. One recent study in The Lancet suggests that consuming seven alcoholic beverages per week will shave two months off your life. So be it. We all make our choices, and personally I will trade two months off the back end of my mortal span for a life with wine. (I also like to scuba dive, which is probably even more unwise.) Another study, in the journal Nature in 2022, noted that “the cumulative evidence is that modest drinkers had lower all-cause mortality and survived better than never drinkers, even after confounders were considered.” 

Essentially, the exact health consequences of moderate drinking are still being debated, though it’s very easy to find experts or agencies willing to make absolute statements on both sides of that debate.

The risk vs. reward of alcohol consumption

In the end, look at it this way: We all make trades of risk versus reward. How else to explain why people still try to climb Annapurna? One in four people die trying to reach the summit. And yet, as one outfitting company has it, “For seasoned mountaineers like you, the Annapurna Expedition in Spring can be another step ahead in your mountaineering journey.” 

Hm … freezing cold airless mountain death, or mild next-day headache? Crazy decision, I know, but I’m sticking to Cabernet. 

In the end, you have to do what’s right for you. And if you’ve decided that less or no alcohol is, for your life, the right choice, then you’ve got plenty of company. In fact, some stats suggest that the vast majority of non-alcoholic options in the beer, wine and spirits realms are actually purchased by people who do drink alcoholic beverages (NielsenIQ puts it at 82%). Not teetotalers, just folks who want to drink less. Moderation in all things, the Greek poet Hesiod wrote — advice that goes back nearly 3,000 years. 

Maybe you’re someone who’s decided you want an entirely alcohol-free life, for whatever reason. Or, like many people who do drink, maybe you just want an alcohol-free alternative now and then. Maybe you’re expecting, or you’re the designated driver tonight. Maybe you’re just tired of martinis. I know plenty of winemakers who don’t drink much or any wine during harvest because they’re so damn sick of grapes, and also because they’re getting up at 4:30 a.m. every day. 

No matter what your reasons, no matter who you are, if what you’re after is an alcohol-free version of beer, wine or cocktails, one thing is abundantly clear: There’s an ocean of new exciting options out there for you to dive into.