The Zero Percent

Once trivialised and mocked, the world of nonalcoholic drinks is now seeing a renaissance, thanks to a new generation of diners and restaurateurs and a growing desire for mindful drinking.

- Hillary Kang

It used to be a point of pride to brag about how drunk one got over the weekend. The ability to consume excessive amounts of alcohol was worn as a badge of honour. But sometime in the last generation, all that changed: According to Monitoring the Future, an ongoing research project of young adults in America that began in 1975, alcohol use amongst young adults in the U.S. has dropped steeply since the 1990s — where 69 per cent of young adults in 1997 professed to have used alcohol at some point in their lifetime, only 42 per cent of similarly aged young adults in 2018 said the same.

Teetotalism —the arcane term for the practice of abstinence from alcohol — isn’t new by any means, but it’s certainly been gaining traction. Sober curious influencers have even emerged, such as 28-year-old Millie Gooch, who fronts Sober Girl Society, a popular online community with over 100,000 followers on Instagram that aims to glamorise non-drinking — or in Gooch’s words, be “huns against hangovers.”

It’s all a far cry from how non-drinkers — and non-alcoholic drinks — have historically been perceived.

Julia Bainbridge would know. The former editor of Bon Appétit and author of “Good Drinks: Alcohol-Free Recipes for When You’re Not Drinking for Whatever Reason” says that long-held stereotypes about non-alcoholic drinks have stymied the field over the years.