Industry & Beverage Trends

The general manager of a 90-seat neighborhood restaurant in Brooklyn opened her Monday-morning planning meeting with a data point her beverage director had prepared over the weekend. Across the previous quarter, roughly one in five diners had ordered a non-alcoholic option at some point during their meal — a mocktail, a sparkling tea, a zero-proof pairing, or simply asking the server "what non-alcoholic options do you actually have?" The restaurant's current non-alcoholic offering was a …

The Director of Food and Beverage at a 220-room luxury property in Miami spent a Tuesday morning in January pulling twelve months of minibar-inventory data across her floors. The pattern was consistent and expensive: 750ml sparkling and wine bottles that had been opened for guest turndown service — some for a single pour to accompany welcome amenities — were being discarded within 48 hours as room turnover continued. The waste ratio on her non-alcoholic sparkling program specifical …

Every October, the People Operations lead at a 340-person technology company in Austin sat down with a spreadsheet of past employee and client gift orders and quietly noticed the same problem: a rising number of recipients had politely declined the previous year's wine and whiskey selections. Some were sober. Some were pregnant. Some observed cultural or religious restrictions on alcohol. Some were simply moving away from drinking as part of a broader wellness commitment. The gifts had been th …

Tuesday evening, 6:42 PM. A woman in her early thirties is standing on a sidewalk three blocks from her hotel, phone in hand. Her colleagues are heading toward a wine bar she would rather not be at tonight — she's nine weeks pregnant and hasn't told them. She types four words into her phone: non-alcoholic drinks near me. The first three results that appear will decide where she walks for the next half-hour, what she orders, what she tips, and whether she remembers this hotel district as …

A regional hospitality group held its annual beverage planning meeting in early January 2026. On the whiteboard at the front of the room: one question, underlined twice. "Which six non-alcoholic brands do we lead with this year?" Three years ago, the same room would have written one brand on that board, almost as an afterthought. Two years ago, maybe two. This year, the conversation took ninety minutes, drew in the wine director and the head of retail, and ended with a six-brand list pinned to …

The head sommelier at a Michelin-starred restaurant in California finished his pre-service tasting at 4:47 PM. He had walked through nine pours, evaluating each against the seven courses on that night's menu — but two of those pours were not wine. They were the non-alcoholic pairings now offered alongside the traditional flight, priced at $185 against the wine flight's $245. He marked his notes, set the bottles upright on the pass, and walked into staff briefing. Three years earlier, tho …

A beverage director at a midtown Manhattan hotel sat across from her general manager last quarter with a single sheet of paper. Down the left column: the hotel's twenty most-requested cocktails, by volume. Down the right: the corresponding non-alcoholic alternative, by guest satisfaction score. The pattern was hard to miss. Wherever the menu offered an Italian aperitivo, a Tuscan red pairing, or a Prosecco service moment, the non-alcoholic version had been quietly losing the comparison — …

On a Friday evening at a design-forward Manhattan hotel, a guest checked in jet-lagged from Seoul and made her way to the rooftop bar before she even unpacked. The bartender placed a chilled glass in front of her, then turned the bottle so she could see the label — a riot of color, bold cartoon strokes, signed by an artist she happened to follow on Instagram. She pulled out her phone before her first sip. That photograph reached 14,000 people overnight. The bottle in question was BONBON …

Inside a Verona trattoria last spring, a sommelier paused before pouring. The table had ordered a tagliata of beef, a wild herb risotto, and a delicate sea bass — three dishes that called for three very different wines. But one guest at the head of the table had quietly declined alcohol. Without missing a beat, the sommelier returned with a chilled bottle of Princess Alternativa Bianco, then a Rosso for the beef, then a flute of Bollicine Bianco Extra Dry to close. The non-drinking guest …