(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] You probably didn't notice,
non-alcoholic drinks are looking
a lot more boozy recently.
- Cheers.
- Cheers.
- [Narrator] And they taste.
- Tastes like an IPA.
- It's exactly what we're going for.
- [Narrator] That's
because boozeless drinks,
aren't just for people who are sober.
- I think a pretty high percentage
of our customers are drinkers.
I'd guess about 75%
and I think that's where the
real growth of the category is.
- [Narrator] These drinks
are also for people who,
often for reasons aside from addiction,
want to take a break from alcohol.
- Like you might feel
differently in the summer
than you do in the winter.
On a Saturday than you do on a Tuesday.
- Dry January for example.
- There we go, you know?
And that's all okay.
- [Narrator] This group
even has a hashtagable name:
Sober Curious.
Statistics show younger
people want to drink less.
And according to a 2018 World
Health Organization report,
the percentage of drinkers has decreased
almost 5% worldwide since 2000.
What's new are the businesses
looking to capture this
sober curious market.
And that's what we went
to learn more about.
- Here in Downtown Manhattan,
there's a bar on just about every corner
and the streets in-between.
But tonight there's a new kind of bar,
one that's open only once a month.
It's call Listen Bar and
it's all non-alcoholic.
(soft music)
Listen Bar founder Lorelei Bandrovschi
first tested the concept in 2018.
Now she's raising money to
make it a permanent space.
But it all started from a dare.
- Five years ago, one of my friends
dared me to take a month off of drinking.
Gradually it became my
preferred way to go out.
- [Narrator] But she says,
this can be an isolating experience.
Listen Bar is her answer to that.
And one that others are ready to pay for.
The night I went, the bar was packed.
- So far the narrative
around not drinking,
has been kind of this
punishment, restriction.
And right now, I think
people are finding a lot
of empowerment in it.
- [Narrator] They're finding
new options on the menu too.
Like beers from Athletic Brewing,
the first non-alcoholic brewery
and taproom in the country.
Bill Shufelt and co-founder John Walker,
opened this space eight months ago.
But it started with Shufelt
reexamining his relationship to alcohol.
- I had a great job in
finance as my previous life.
I was just turning 30 years
old, I was getting healthier
and alcohol didn't really fit
in any element of my life.
- [Narrator] So he cut back
and eventually left alcohol
behind, but not the bar.
- I started to think, why can't there be
a good non-alcoholic craft beer.
- [Narrator] That lead him
here, where he and Walker
began testing recipes in these water jugs.
- What was the first brew like?
Do you remember what it tasted like?
- For sure, and I had a much
lower bar of acceptance.
It took about 30 batches
until John was like:
"Okay we're looking at
real craft beer here."
- [Narrator] Now their beer lineup
is what you might expect
from a typical craft brewery.
- Walking around, we've
got a tank of IPA here.
That's 40 barrels of IPA.
This is our Cerveza
Atletica, our Mexican Lager.
It's our summer seasonal.
And then we have a big batch
of golden ale in this tank here.
- [Narrator] And he says
they're canning anywhere
from 500 to 1000 cases of beer a day.
Athletic distributes to
bars and grocery stores,
including Whole Foods, and sells online.
- What is your growth been
like since you started
serving beer to people,
shipping beer to people.
- We thought we had built
the brewery for five years,
we just doubled our
footprint and tank space
about a month ago and
we're already behind.
Would you like to try a beer?
- [Narrator] The interest
in Athelic's beers
hasn't surprised Shufelt though.
He says he'll often tell
people: "just try a sip".
- Do people have the reaction I had
where they're a little surprised
to taste it for the first time?
- For sure, people are
definitely super skeptical
and immediately after they taste it
you see the light bulb go on.
(soft music)
- [Narrator] Richie Crowley was interested
before his first taste.
He's an athlete currently
biking his way across the US.
Athelic was one of his first stops.
&- As someone who's sober,
it was really exciting
when I was like, there's
a non-alcoholic brewery.
- And why did you decide to go sober?
- (sighs) There's like a lot
of different reasons from
health to just social, then like
the physical health, mental health
but I didn't want to compromise my dreams,
compromise my goals anymore.
- How does this beer taste compared to
- Dude, it's (laughing)
- beer that you've had
before you went sober.
- Man, you can't taste the difference.
- [Narrator] But outside
of the beer world,
feeling is as important as taste.
At least for Kin, a company
that makes euphorics.
Essentially, non-alcoholic
spirits with a wellness twist.
I met Jen Batchelor, the company's founder
at Kin's office in Brooklyn.
- Just before we even
start making the drink
can you just tell me, what are euphorics?
- Yes, in its simplest form euphorics are
a new category of adult beverage
that's intended to bring more
connective moments at the bar
and they're made of nootropics,
adaptogenic herbs, and
functional botanics.
- [Narrator] This
combination of ingredients
was crafted to make you feel something,
not drunk of course.
Batchelor described it
as a feeling of lightness
but still a sense of presence.
- What is it meant to taste like?
Is it meant to, am I taking my vitamins?
Or am I drinking a cocktail?
- No, it's meant to taste like a spirit
that you might have out
at your favorite bar.
- [Narrator] The company launched
its first euphoric last
year, called High Road.
It's similar to a spirit and
she says it's selling well.
- So this is like essentially me drinking
a shot of vodka or a shot of
- Yes, straight.
- All right, so let's give it a shot.
- Cheers.
- Cheers.
- Yeah
- It does have that bitterness
that feels very much like Aperol,
that makes me feel like I'm
drinking an adult beverage.
- Yes.
- [Narrator] While my Kin
experience didn't leave me
feeling different physically or mentally,
the cocktail Batchelor made me was mature,
like something you do
expect on a bar menu.
And it is, in New York and LA.
For Kin and Athelic is
about giving people drinks
that can help break the stigma around
choosing a non-alcoholic
option at the bar.
- I think there's still quite
a bit of that resentment
of somebody saying, I'm
not drinking tonight,
and they're like "oh, why man?".
That stigma will still persist
until we're all comfortable
and we all feel like
there is an elevated
option to replace that.
- [ Narrator] Listen Bar's founder,
who still drinks on occasion,
said her thinking has totally changed.
- I started out as a skeptic and here I am
running a business now that is centered
around the thing that,
initially, I rejected.
- Is it a trend?
- Yes, it is a trend and
it's bigger than a trend.
This is something that people
have been hungering for
for a long time and finally
there's something to point to.
You know, there's a phrase,
there is some places.
- [Narrator] To be fair,
sobriety existed before sober curiosity
and all three founders
said their offerings
are made for those people too.
Though they recognize drinks like these
can be triggering for some.
So, it's really up to the person.
- It's a spectrum of sobriety, you know?
And I think that here is very much still
traditional sobriety as part of it.
The point is not that, you know,
now it's trendy to be sober.
The point is that now
more people are aware
that there is a spectrum.
