Industry & Beverage Trends

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 …