As ‘sober curious’ trend grows, major brands tap into non-alcoholic drinks - National | Globalnews.ca
Surveys in the U.S. and Canada show consumers, especially younger generations, are increasingly cutting back on alcohol consumption.
Learned a new term today: “sober curious.” I quit drinking 5 years ago, and never looked back. I wouldn’t mind some more variety for non-alcoholic drinks, especially those without sugar. Can’t have pop too often because it’s just sugar. Kombucha reminds me of beer so I avoid it. Fruit juices are full of sugar too. So it’s usually down to tea, coffee or water for me.
lol that sounds like vocabulary only an alcoholic would invent.
"I've heard of being sober, but I'm to afraid to try it right now."
It's a super weird turn of phrase. I admit, as someone who doesn't actually enjoy the flavour of alcohol nor its intoxicating effects, I'd not mind having something a little more universal that I can say to people. "I don't really drink" both comes with a lot of unrelated baggage -- they think I'm either a recovering alcoholic or a church nut -- and people get really weird about it if they ever see me having a drink (probably because they think I've fallen off the wagon or something).
But that phrase sure as hell isn't going to be "sober-curious".
lol totally
Since things like iced coffee and unsweetened tea exists, I don't really have a problem with options, especially since they've both become common enough to be canned.
That said, the term "sober curious" just sounds degrading, like you're saying "that weirdo guy who's actually wondering what it's like to be sober" rather than someone who doesn't want to be a publicly acceptable drug addict.
"Look, I'm totally a drinker, but I've always wanted to try not-drinking, and I was wondering if maybe you'd like to be my first time?"
Yeah, the term is strange for sure! First time I see it.
Same. I got into kefir and a wide variety of herbal teas/tisanes, myself.
Once you try avoiding sugar, your choices are pretty limited. I drank some pop when I was just starting to quit, but I knew it was just a temporary solution. On the bright side, you save money by drinking water most of the time. If we go out I’ll sometimes order those fake cocktails, but they are so expensive.
How do you feel about drinks like Bubly?
Not the person you’re replying to but I’ve been sober almost 7 years and I drink tons of flavored sparkling water.
I drank a ton of those 0 sugar flavored carbonated water when I was quitting, but I stopped after a while. Felt bad creating so much recycling. But yeah, I like them! I’ll take one when people offer or when I do feel like something other than water. I just no longer buy them on a regular basis. My home made alternative is squeezing half a lemon in a glass of water or club soda (and I’d buy the 2L bottles).
I was trying to escape beer to save money, but at $2 a can non-alcoholic is even more expensive despite seemingly less taxes needing to be paid.
You ever tried kombucha, it may hit the spot similarly.
My initial assumption was that it's because it's newer, so they need to make up that r&d cost (edit: I get why this is silly now). Once there is a lot more competition for it, the prices should come down. Similar to how some plant based meats / milks or gluten-free products became more accessible once general people started buying them instead of a tiny group that could be exploited more easily.
I'm just hoping for fewer drunk driving accidents and reduced health issues
R&D cost lol, there’s no such thing. That’s what companies want you to believe so they can upsell medicine and technology.
This is just another market rife for capitalism to ensnare. Some guy crunched the numbers and found that x% don’t drink at events. So to recoup that lost revenue, they made this. The drinks, the ads, the news articles that cover it. All planted to drive up their bottom line.
Because that’s how businesses work. They find an angle and swoop in and start setting up payment systems to see what people will begrudgingly pay for.
Non-alcoholic beer is older than most of the people in this thread commenting¹. There's no more "R&D cost" involved in making it. If they're charging more for the non-alcoholic than the alcoholic, it's just straight-up greed.
¹ Source: I was drinking this shit when I was 12—45 years ago, in other words—and even then it was old news!
I wonder if this is a pendulum swinging, and gen z's kids will drink to excess.
Me I limit myself to one or two drinks, only in social spaces/never alone.
That's interesting, I hadn't thought of that. I guess we're seeing a bit of that with smoking vs vaping, but I'd need to look at the rates more to see if that actually was like a pendulum
I'm gen x and have no issue drinking 6 beer alone (alone as the only one drinking in the home) once or twice a month, while I do my own thing or interact with the family.
How does this compare with recent trends of non alcoholic drinks coming out with alcoholic versions of their flagships? I've seen Mountain Dew and Arizona Tea drinks with alcohol in them at the ABC, which is really strange to me.
Didn't Gen Z already destroy hard liquor as an industry if breathless headlines of a decade or so ago are anything to go by?
Has a large proportion of Gen Zers quit drinking entirely? If so, then along with social media facilitating cathartic sharing, and wage stagnation destroying lifestyle expectations, that would add another layer helping to explain the apparently larger percentage of Gen Zers than with previous generations that are (publicly) having trouble putting up with certain kinds of BS at the workplace.
I noticed a huge influx of these this past year. I was a grocer actually stocking the product a couple of years ago, so I know this is somewhat recent. It was really good timing for my wife, though, while she was pregnant this year.
The prices on the non alcoholic craft cocktails in a can though.... yeesh.
I honestly don’t understand this trend. It seems like craft sofas but more expensive
I like coffee, tea, beer, wine. They're all pretty bitter. Non-alcoholic substitutes like soda and juice are typically sweet. That's the appeal for me, having a bitter non-alcoholic drink, like a 'near beer'. I'm not strongly into this trend, but I understand an angle to it when I try to cut back my beer consumption
Most of the products hitting the shelf are non alcoholic RTD though, not beer or wine. Some vodka seltzer brands are even coming out with their own brand of seltzer and it’s going to cost about the same as the vodka version.
If the companies making these drinks had the pricing in line with other nonalcoholic drinks it would make more sense, but the prices are the same if not higher than actual alcohol.
Dude my bespoke couch is the bomb and the handmade futon? Pure. Luxury. Craft sofas are life changing.
The price is kind of wild but my partner who is a 'functional' alcoholic stopped drinking in January of this year and has switched to non-alcoholic beers. There's some that are pretty wildly expensive but a lot are actually still a lot cheaper than regular beer. It's a good outlet for those who mostly drink out of habit.
Personally I had all the sobriety I could stand by the time I had my first drink. I will sober up when I die like I will catch up on my sleep. Edit: It appears that me living my life the way I want is not loved by all.
People aren't downvoting you because they disagree with your lifestyle, but your comment is like going into a thread about veganism and saying "fuck yall I'm gonna eat a cheese burger every day until I die". A valid personal decision, but not really relavent to the conversation unless you just wanted everyone to know you're different