I can fit a quarter in my belly button. I’m an excellent rapper so long as the song I’m rapping is “Lazy Sunday” by Lonely Island. I once accurately defined “hasenpfeffer” while watching “Jeopardy!” with my dad. These are fun facts! I’m a cool person! Given that everything I just shared barely scratches the surface of my life, I’m absolutely certain that the most interesting thing about me is not that I will often choose to drink a mocktail over a cocktail. So, why is it that friends, family and people I’ve just met disagree?
I’ve long grappled with my dislike of most alcoholic beverages. For the most part, I used to play along and drink whatever nasty concoction sloshed around in my Solo Cup just to fit in, but never with the same gusto as my peers. In high school, I attempted to hide this weird personality quirk by volunteering to be the designated driver as often as I could. On those nights, my friends praised me instead of punishing me for not drinking with them. In college, I lost that ready-made excuse, so I tried a little harder to be like everyone else around me. I drank what my friends drank, ordered cocktails at dinner and even pretended to like red wine before finally deciding the charade was unnecessary. It was getting exhausting. And expensive.
Being surrounded by the heavy drinking of my peers throughout my formative years, I was led to believe that I was alone in my dislike. Born in 1995, I’m just barely considered a millennial, but for the Gen Zers who came after me, the glamorous world of projectile vomiting and debilitating hangovers has become less appealing. A report published in 2018 by Berenberg Research found that each subsequent generation consumes less alcohol than the previous generation, with Gen Z drinking about 20 percent less per capita than my millennial cohort.
This decrease in popularity could be attributed to the permanence of the internet and social media. Idiocy isn’t as easily forgiven or forgotten with the advent of TikTok and Instagram. It could also be that we’re more conscious of our health as a society. In 2023, we’re smoking fewer cigarettes, adding Sea Moss gel to our smoothies and walking, hotly.
Maybe it’s because of the legalization of marijuana and the decriminalization of psychedelics in states like Colorado and Oregon. In the wake of these legal reforms, more people are turning to the “California Sober” lifestyle in which they eschew booze in favor of weed (and sometimes magic mushrooms).
Or it could be that pop culture has shied away from glorifying binge drinking. TV shows like “Sex Education” and the revamped “Gossip Girl” place a stronger emphasis on the value of establishing clear boundaries, all while hammering home the negative effects of overconsumption. Whatever the reason, this trend is, well, trending. And I, for one, am ecstatic.
Upon moving to Los Angeles, I found myself in the midst of a zero-proof revolution. The city is rife with opportunities to participate in social events that celebrate sobriety and is home to expertly curated non-alcoholic bottle shops in neighborhoods like Silver Lake, Brentwood, Studio City and Venice. Angelenos are embracing temperance and making it look cool.
Newcomers to the L.A. teetotaler scene are sisters Priyanka and Chirasmita Kompella. They co-founded Zero Proofed in 2022, a pop-up that hosts booze-free events up and down the Westside, with the intention of reclaiming the word “drink.”
“We actually drink a lot of beverages throughout the day that aren’t alcoholic, but for some reason we only say we’re drinking when we’re drinking alcoholic beverages,” says the duo. “And we want to take the word back.”
At some point in time, a word that used to apply to any and all libations took on a life of its own, so much so that it now carries the weight of the entire alcohol industry. Just in this article, I’ve already used the word at least seven times without clarifying what I was drinking. The ethanol is implicit. By stripping the implication of alcohol from the word, it normalizes sobriety and is a step toward inclusivity and destigmatization.
This is the motivation behind Zero Proofed. The events, from Halloween parties in Venice to pop-up speakeasies in Culver City, make it possible for sober and sober-curious people to engage with bar culture in a judgment-free space.
“I want the option to have a sophisticated cocktail after a crazy day of work and just have that ritual of drinking something,” says Priyanka, “but it doesn’t necessarily have to alter my mental state.”
“Everyone is allowed to have a night off. It’s about grabbing a nice drink, meeting people, and talking about your day,” adds Chirasmita.
Brianda Gonzalez is likewise interested in making a booze-free existence fun with her bottle shop, The New Bar. She opened her store in Venice in 2022 as a way of connecting with her bartender father after he was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that precludes him from drinking alcohol. In opening The New Bar, she discovered an entire community of people who were also eager to engage in a semi-sober lifestyle for a multitude of reasons.
“It’s about having a more thoughtful and mindful relationship with alcohol, and choosing when you want to participate in it rather than drinking it by default because it’s the only option or because it’s what we’ve been conditioned to do,” Gonzalez says. “In the United States, and I think even internationally, the conversation has shifted so much around where these drinks might belong, who drinks them and how they can be incorporated into everybody’s lives.”
Gonzalez still drinks alcohol, albeit way less often, which is representative of the typical consumer in this category. Courtney Balzer, Chief Marketing Officer of Boisson—a non-alcoholic bottle shop with eight stores across New York, L.A. and San Francisco—describes their typical consumer as someone fairly young (between the ages of 28 and 45) with a household income of about $250,000 per year. In general, more women shop in their stores than men (60/40 split) and they live in large metropolitan cities. Following the same trend, most people who shop with them also drink alcohol.
On a national level, only 14 percent of people who engage with non-alcoholic spirits fully abstain from drinking alcohol, while the remainder are dabbling in moderation as a way of practicing mindfulness and prioritizing health.
Finding opportunities to drink less is easier said than done for many people. By and large, these bottle shops have been marketed to wealthier individuals who have the means and social capital to experiment with sobriety. In the Latine community where drinking mezcal, tequila, rum, and beer can often be viewed as part of the culture, not participating can be alienating. Pablo Murillo and Morris Ellis founded the pop-up Bar Nuda as a way of shifting this mindset. They want to foster inclusion and promote sober fun by serving mocktails infused with the flavors of Mexico.
Bryant Orozco, Bar Nuda’s resident bartender, told the “Los Angeles Times”: “For me, it’s very important we have a space for people who either identify as Hispanic or Latino. [These mocktails] represent our culture with our herbs or spices that I’m bringing from Mexico. It’s a way to say, ‘Hey, we can enjoy, we can have fun and create these spaces and environments.”
In this new world of non-alcoholic spirits and events, where do people under the age of 21 fit in? The short answer is that they don’t. The long answer is that these pop-ups and bottle shops exist as an alternative for people who can legally engage with alcohol. For the Kompella sisters, their events are designed for working professionals to let loose and socialize. They want to capture the sophistication of a bar and demonstrate the potential of non-alcoholic mixology. The desired vibe doesn’t leave room for a younger generation that hasn’t developed an appreciation for alcohol beyond its ABV.
Psychology, it seems, would agree that this space isn’t meant for people under the legal drinking age. Dr. Adam Leventhal, director of the Institute for Addiction Science at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, says, “It’s an interesting question for a young person. You can, of course, see the risks if it’s acclimating them to a culture of drinking at an earlier age. In general, when you expose something to someone at a younger age, the worse it can become for them.”
We’re all still trying to navigate this completely novel industry. As with anything new, there’s a learning curve as consumers adjust. When I attended Zero Proofed’s one-year anniversary party at Alana’s Coffee Roasters at the end of September, I noticed that people are still figuring out what tastes good to them and how much they’re willing to spend on mocktails.
Sober September brought Suzannah Nabers, 30, to the event. Like most in the category, she occasionally takes breaks from drinking alcohol, but isn’t committed to a sober lifestyle.
Manda Morrissey, 28, takes the same approach. When she’s flirting with sobriety, Morrissey enjoys crafting her own non-alcoholic cocktails. She said, “I think it’s really fun making non-alcoholic drinks. There’s more of a ritualistic aspect to making these drinks, and I can get more creative with them.”
When asked if they would spend the same amount of money on a mocktail as they would on a cocktail, both women said they wouldn’t. “If the presentation is great and the quality of ingredients are really good, I would be willing to spend a little less than I would on a typical alcoholic drink,” said Nabers, “but I expect them to be less expensive.”
This idea that non-alcoholic cocktails aren’t worth as much as their alcoholic counterparts is one of the major hurdles companies within this space have to overcome. “We’ve grown accustomed to basically seeing the inherent value of a drink as so closely connected to the ethanol within it, right?” Gonzalez says. “We’re like, ‘I’m buying this drink to get drunk’ and that’s the value of the drink. If you start to think about the flavor and the complexity and the beauty of the liquid in your glass, you realize it’s more about your ability to practice that kind of mindfulness. So, for me, I’ve been able to see the value of a drink as much more than that.”
A similar emphasis on mindfulness and education is echoed by the Kompella sisters. Priyanka notes that the price of a beverage is impacted by more than its ingredients. Staff wages, rent, electricity, and all of the other costs that go into running a business contribute to what a customer pays for a drink (with or without alcohol) at a restaurant or bar.
Chirasmita adds that non-alcoholic spirit companies “are coming up with these non-existent flavor profiles that represent an entirely new idea. The amount of capital that’s involved in just creating the spirits before they even come to our bar is at a premium.”
Businesses such as Zero Proofed, Bar Nuda, and The New Bar are slowly chipping away at the mystique that accompanies getting drunk and the palpable stigma that surrounds young people who choose not to imbibe. Personally, I’m just looking forward to the day when I can order a drink, regardless of its alcohol content, at dinner without comment. There will be no explanations or justifications when I ask for the same seasonal shrub as my 12-year-old cousin. Likewise, there will be no shock or praise when I finish all of my spicy Bloody Mary because, yes, I’ve discovered that some alcoholic drinks actually taste good to me. My order won’t even register as something worth commenting on because it’s really not all that interesting. Wouldn’t our time be better spent betting on how many quarters I can fit in my belly button?