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Dry January doesn’t have to mean weak drink sales

There are plenty of spirit-free options that customers are willing to pay for

Bret Thorn, Senior Food Editor

January 2, 2024

4 Min Read
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I’m not a fan of “Dry January” for several reasons.

From the perspective of restaurant operators, the timing of many people to forego alcohol for a month is bad. January is traditionally slow anyway in most markets as consumers tighten their belts and take stock of their finances after end-of-year splurges.

From a health perspective, if you’re considering abstaining from drinking for a month, maybe a month isn’t enough.

From a personal perspective, I just don’t like being told what to do. Tell me not to drink for a month and I’m likely to double down on my consumption. Also, I like drinking alcohol: It relaxes me and makes me happy.

But many Americans, a surprising number if you ask me, do participate in Dry January. Estimates of how many U.S. drinkers forego alcohol for the month range from 15% to 35%.

And although I, and probably many of you, would prefer that Americans take a break from drinking during busier months —“Sober October” is another option, or the 40 days of Lent, or people could just pick their own time to take a break, maybe March 18 to April 18 — I do think that many people would benefit from cutting back.

While alcohol does make me and many other people happy and has no-doubt contributed to breaking down social barriers and improving many relationships, it has also contributed to the destruction of many others. Alcohol is highly addictive and can result in bad choices ranging from embarrassing text messages to death. It’s also carcinogenic, bad for your liver, and fattening.

Related:At Fifty Three restaurant in New York City, the spirit-free cocktails get as much love as the full-proof ones

As I said, many people who think they should stop drinking for a month probably should consider quitting altogether. On the other hand, taking a break does give you the opportunity to reassess your relationship with alcohol and is a less daunting approach than going cold turkey. In fact, one of my favorite bartenders, who is sober, said she started her non-drinking ways a few years ago with Dry January, discovered she was better off without alcohol overall and has stayed dry ever since. She still does shots with customers, but she shoots pickle juice.

And indeed there are now many socially acceptable options for non-drinkers that also are profitable for restaurateurs. Non-alcoholic beer is part of the regular inventory of many restaurants and bars and, according to an October report in The Wall Street Journal citing Euromonitor data, accounted for 0.9% of beer sales by volume as of September 2023. In Western Europe it accounts for 5.8% of total beer consumption.

There’s also an abundance of alcohol-free wine and zero-proof substitutes for hard liquor, some of which verge on the undrinkable, but a growing number of them are quite tasty.

Related:Spirit-free cocktails and coffee come together in an emerging trend

And bartenders are getting better at making spirit-free cocktails, which is the name I prefer to “mocktails,” because there’s nothing fake or mock-worthy about these drinks, which are given as much time and attention as traditional cocktails.

Here’s a link to what 53 Restaurant, an Asian concept by the Altamarea Group in New York City, was doing with spirit-free cocktails last year.

An example is that restaurant’s Godai, a spirit-free Old Fashioned made with Lyre’s non-alcoholic whiskey infused by 53’s bar staff with house-made corn tea and wheat tea plus some cinnamon and cloves, all to boost its whiskey flavor profile. That’s sweetened with molasses-heavy Okinawa sugar, mixed with zero-alcohol bitters, and served in a glass. with a smoldering licorice root.

Last time I checked 53 charged $16 for it, compared to around $24 for its full-proof cocktails.

That’s in Midtown Manhattan. If you’re in other markets you might consider charging less, obviously.

But other venues have started to charge about as much for zero-proof drinks as they have for high-proof ones, including the Black Lagoon Halloween Pop Up that was held in 18 locations in North America. I went to the New York City preview and all cocktails were listed at $16 regardless of what was in them. That’s fair, since good alcohol substitutes can be pretty costly.

So now restaurants have the tools to make great and highly profitable drinks that a growing number of their customers enjoy and don’t contain booze. If you haven’t reassessed your beverage offerings lately, this could be a good place to start.

Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected] 

About the Author

Bret Thorn

Senior Food Editor, Nation's Restaurant News

Senior Food & Beverage Editor

Bret Thorn is senior food & beverage editor for Nation’s Restaurant News and Restaurant Hospitality for Informa’s Restaurants and Food Group, with responsibility for spotting and reporting on food and beverage trends across the country for both publications as well as guiding overall F&B coverage. 

He is the host of a podcast, In the Kitchen with Bret Thorn, which features interviews with chefs, food & beverage authorities and other experts in foodservice operations.

From 2005 to 2008 he also wrote the Kitchen Dish column for The New York Sun, covering restaurant openings and chefs’ career moves in New York City.

He joined Nation’s Restaurant News in 1999 after spending about five years in Thailand, where he wrote articles about business, banking and finance as well as restaurant reviews and food columns for Manager magazine and Asia Times newspaper. He joined Restaurant Hospitality’s staff in 2016 while retaining his position at NRN. 

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in history, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Thorn also studied traditional French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. He spent his junior year of college in China, studying Chinese language, history and culture for a semester each at Nanjing University and Beijing University. While in Beijing, he also worked for ABC News during the protests and ultimate crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Thorn’s monthly column in Nation’s Restaurant News won the 2006 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for best staff-written editorial or opinion column.

He served as president of the International Foodservice Editorial Council, or IFEC, in 2005.

Thorn wrote the entry on comfort food in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, 2nd edition, published in 2012. He also wrote a history of plated desserts for the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, published in 2015.

He was inducted into the Disciples d’Escoffier in 2014.

A Colorado native originally from Denver, Thorn lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Bret Thorn’s areas of expertise include food and beverage trends in restaurants, French cuisine, the cuisines of Asia in general and Thailand in particular, restaurant operations and service trends. 

Bret Thorn’s Experience: 

Nation’s Restaurant News, food & beverage editor, 1999-Present
New York Sun, columnist, 2005-2008 
Asia Times, sub editor, 1995-1997
Manager magazine, senior editor and restaurant critic, 1992-1997
ABC News, runner, May-July, 1989

Education:
Tufts University, BA in history, 1990
Peking University, studied Chinese language, spring, 1989
Nanjing University, studied Chinese language and culture, fall, 1988 
Le Cordon Bleu Ecole de Cuisine, Cértificat Elémentaire, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Social Media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bret-thorn-468b663/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bret.thorn.52
Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Instagram: @foodwriterdiary

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