My local corner grocery store now has several shelves dedicated to fancy non-alcoholic beverages and booze-free cocktail ingredients. It didn’t always. A few years ago, Seedlip appeared as a kind of booze-free gin substitute, kicking off a beverage revolution and giving sober party-goers something fancier to drink than club soda. Mocktail recipe books appeared. Soon bars were charging $14 for drinks they called “temperance cocktails.”
The sober and “sober-curious” movement is now sweeping the country. Booze-free bottle shops, bars and social clubs are popping up. Is the next generation not drinking as much? Have cannabis gummies replaced chardonnay as the de-stresser of choice? Are we abandoning the bottle in reaction to new information about the pernicious side effects of alcohol?
At Maclean’s, we wanted to better understand the trend, so we asked Caitlin Walsh Miller, a writer in Montreal, to investigate. Her story, “Sober Nation,” is a delightful assessment of the new booze-free lifestyle, its products and its root causes.
–Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
