At Hopscotch, Darryl Collins’ bottle shop in Baltimore, he happily sells wine to 18-year-olds. If a customer isn’t sure which variety they like (and who at that age does?), Collins will sometimes pull a few bottles off the shelf, pop the corks, and do an impromptu tasting. None of the drinks at this establishment contain alcohol, so Maryland law doesn’t allow the teens anywhere near Tempranillo.
The number and variety of zero- and low-alcohol beverages, once a lagging category, is gaining attention from academics and scientists. who The service, called “NoLos,” has exploded over the past five years. An already growing “Sober Curious” movement made up of adults who wanted to practice more thoughtful alcohol consumption or limit their drinking while continuing to socialize over drinks at home or in bars. snowballed during the pandemic shutdown. today, about 70 NoLo bottle shops like Hopscotch are scattered across the U.S., and there are dozens more Non-alcoholic, or NA, barmost are under 4 years old.
Almost all of the products in our range are designed with adults in mind. But when you break it down to its most basic components, many of them are little different from juice, soda, or kombucha. In theory, these are teen-friendly drinks. However, not all bar and shop owners sell to people under the age of 21. State laws, if any, vary regarding what types of alcohol-like beverages are appropriate for people who are too old to drink actual alcohol. As non-alcoholic adult beverages become more mainstream, we are being forced to make calculations about what makes a drink ‘adult’ rather than alcohol, and testing whether we can truly separate our drinking culture from booze.
For example, imagine Shirley Temple, the perfect children’s drink. Add a shot of vodka and you have Dirty Shirley. Then, instead of the vodka, put in about an ounce of “Zero Proof Her Vodka Replacement” with cinnamon in a sexy glass bottle. Can a 10 year old have it? that Shirley Temple? What if instead of the add-in, he had an ounce of tap water with the same flavor of cinnamon extract added?
This puzzle diagnoses how zero-proof entrepreneurs approach the appeals and dangers of drinking culture, and the role they expect alternatives to play in changing it. Some people believe that branding and bottle design make a drink ‘adult’, and others worry that packaging elements often associated with alcohol may open the door to consumption of the drink. There are some too. Some people base their judgment on the drink’s name, how it’s made, and what it pays homage to. Mocktails with a distinct identity are preferable to imitations of established recipes. Atmosphere is also important. Is the bar modeled after a family-friendly taproom or an upscale cocktail joint?
The decision to sell alcoholic substances to persons under the age of 21 is restricted by law.federal government Define An alcoholic beverage as a drink with an alcohol content of 0.5 percent or more, consistent with average kombucha and lower than some kombuchas. apple, orange and grape juice. (Beer substitutes are eligible) Additional regulations The word is banned by the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, among other requirements. Beer from the package unless it’s part of a phrase near beer.) However, a state’s specific alcoholic beverage definitions may focus on processes and ingredients (such as malt) in a way that makes it impossible to distinguish between authentic and NA alternatives. NoLo’s manufacturers keep their product below the federally mandated limit of 0.5%, but the legal status could be murky once the drink hits local shelves. For example, Pennsylvania has the following law: make it illegal Providing NoLo analogs of genuine adult beverages to youth under 21 years of age. This is not prohibited in other states.
In Lafayette, Ind., Rob Theodorow is splitting his strategy down the middle for his bar and bottle shop, Generation NA. NA beer, wine, and spirits (including Athletic Brewing Co.’s six-pack, Naughty’s Sparkling Rosé, and Seedlip’s gin-like Spice 94) are off-limits to anyone under 21. Customers 18 and older can purchase real liquor store-style drinks, including wellness sodas made by brands like Recess and Kin Euphorics, and sample beers with free samples.
Selling NA drinks to young people is not Expressly under illegal indiana lawBut even with a clear green light, Mr. Theodorow has so far ruled that any product containing alcohol (even fully dealcoholized drinks like Heineken 0.0) cannot be sold to anyone under the age of 21. I would draw a line at that. “I’m a big believer in trying to keep people away from alcohol,” he told me. For him, that means treating products that taste and look like alcohol with the same care as products that actually contain alcohol.
Some business owners worry that as the NoLos flavor develops, young people will want the real deal. “When it comes to children, allowing them to consume all types of beer, wine and spirits may normalize or desensitize the concept of alcoholic beverages,” the industry group said. Kate Faulkner, co-founder and director of Zero Proof Collective, says:Minnesota groups. Others are concerned that marketing NoLo drinks to young people could still encourage harmful aspects of drinking culture. Imagine a 15 year old shotgunning his NA beer in the backyard. “It’s not so much the liquid that’s important, it’s the ritual,” Laura Silverman, founder of NA’s information hub Zero Proof Nation, told me.
Still other advocates and entrepreneurs see NoLos as a way for young people to form healthier habits. One of them is Laura Willoughby. She is a partner in Club She Soda, a shop and bar she co-founded that hosts a number of 16, 17 and 18 birthday parties in London, where the legal drinking age is 18 for her. I am the director of. Willoughby told me, “It has four ingredients, no sugar, is moisturizing and rich in vitamin B-12.Aside from water, it’s the healthiest thing you can drink in a pub.” But like Theodoro, she won’t offer non-alcoholic drinks made by brands that also sell alcohol to people under the legal drinking age.
Both abroad and in the United States, these conversations are rooted in age-old questions about the “appropriate age” and how to introduce alcohol to young people. The question is whether you should start drinking alcohol gradually from childhood, or all at once at age 21. Research has yet to provide a clear answer, much less an answer that applies to NoLos.some International the study For young people, consumption of NoLos is associated with drinking real alcohol, but the cultural role of alcohol has been shown to vary widely around the world.Several early evidence European researchers have suggested that NoLos may exacerbate existing drug cravings in adults with alcohol use disorders, but there are some in the zero-proof community, including Silverman, who believe the drink is Many people believe that it helps maintain sobriety. Perhaps the answer will never be clear. Molly Boudrig, a clinical psychologist and postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, just completed her first study of nonalcoholic beverage consumers in the United States. Her most powerful finding was that the ways in which NA beverages change people’s relationships with alcohol are subtle and diverse. (Her research has not yet been peer-reviewed or published.)
Willoughby and other shop and bar owners told me they often err on the side of caution and leave decisions about what their underage children can drink, often without a firm agreement. But even for parents deeply involved in the NA industry, the decision is not easy. Ms. Collins’ own daughter is her 9-year-old, and even after months of running her hopscotch business, Mr. Collins explains what he wants her to drink, or what he doesn’t want her to drink. I was having a hard time. I asked him, and he stopped and gathered four cans from the refrigerator along the wall of the store. At his house, the non-alcoholic Bead His Knee is for adults only, as it shares the name with the real cocktail and has only 15 percent fruit juice. But Fomosa, which is 65 percent fruit juice and has a unique mocktail name, is, in his book, aimed at children. White Claw’s new non-alcoholic soda is functionally the same product as LaCroix and Spindrift, but Mr. Collins would only approve if it was served in a glass to his daughter. (“Imagine your daughter going to school and telling her teacher, ‘I drank White Claw on Saturday,’” he says.) And then there’s the final can of hops. We classified flavored seltzers as adult-only beverages. Hop flavor is closely related to beer.
Even though the cocktail Collins mixed me when I arrived didn’t contain a single drop of alcohol, it was enough to make me lightheaded. His answer made sense, and I’m sure others would too. As long as these drinks exist in the liminal spaces of our culture, norms grow and change in real time with the children they serve. Maybe someday they will look back and realize that alcohol has changed them too.
