Dry January can mean boon, not bust for California Wine Country makers of alcohol-free wine, spirits, brews
No longer does Dry January mean living without a cocktail, beer or even wine. It just means alcohol is not part of the equation.
North Bay restaurants and bars as well as local alcohol creators have the solution for those who don’t want to imbibe in the traditional sense this month.
“The sale of NA (nonalcoholic) beers as a whole in the last year has gone up insanely, but (last) January takes the cake,” said Caroline Chromik, bar manager at The Junction Beer Garden and Bottle Shop in Mill Valley.
While percentage-wise nonalcoholic beers are a fraction of overall sales, this Marin County bar has four of them available at any given time along with 30 taps of regular beer. Two are local purveyors — Best Day Brewing in Sausalito and RationAle, which is brewed in Sonoma. Both companies only make nonalcoholic beer.
Chromik said it’s not unusual to sell 20 cans of nonalcoholic beer in a day.
What is selling
For those who are participating in Dry January, options are endless and seem to grow each year. No longer are people relegated to soda water with a twist or flavorless “fake” beer.
In fact, nonalcoholic beverage choices aren’t just for this month. They are an option people are asking for on a regular basis.
The Fern Bar in Sebastopol usually has five nonalcoholic drinks on the menu at any given time, not just this time of year. These are much more than just leaving out the vodka in a Bloody Mary.
Fern Bar makes is own nonalcoholic whiskey. It is used in old fashioneds and other drinks.
Nonalcoholic gin is another popular choice as is rum, also now on the market in a nonalcoholic formula.
Seedlip, a company based in the U.K., brought the first nonalcoholic spirit to the market in 2015. Other companies joined the effort, with more varieties coming out such as tequila, mezcal and whiskey in addition to gin and rum.
“It’s important to me they have just as much fun in our bar when they are not drinking alcohol,” Sam Levy, owner/general manager, said as to why he embraces nonalcoholic drinks.
He recently received a shipment of nonalcoholic sparkling wine from Leitz in Germany.
“It has allowed us to do more fun sparkling daytime cocktails like French 75s, Bellinis, and sbagliatos,” Levy said.
While non-alcholic drinks are on the menu year-round at the Fern Bar, Levy is expecting an influx in sales.
“If we can make predications based on the last couple years, people did participate in (Dry January),” Levy said. “We did see guests coming out who wanted more nonalcoholic offerings and we were able to provide people a lot of options with drinks without alcohol.”
He said nonalcoholic drinks make up about 3% to 4% of sales, with that increasing to 5% to 6% in January.
And the reason these drinks don’t cost less, according to Levy, is a bottle of nonalcoholic gin usually costs more than the real stuff.
Josh Kirchhoff is the corporate wine, beer and spirits buyer for Oliver's Markets. He said the four stores, two in Santa Rosa, one in Cotati and one in Windsor, will definitely see a rise in sales for non-alcoholic products in January.
“It is a category that is growing and is starting to sell consistently year-round,” Kirchhoff said. He added the chain has “focused ads for all types of NA beverages for the entire month (wine, spirits and beer).”
The Fink, which opened in Napa last summer, is predicting nonalcoholic drink sales will be robust in January. The request for them have been so popular that starting this month options will be printed on the regular cocktail menu.
Owner Judd Finkelstein said it’s about being inclusive and making alcohol-free drinks more accessible.
Sovi Wine Co. in Napa, which has been making nonalcoholic wine since 2020, has seen a spike in sales every January.
“All of the grapes for Sovi’s wines are certified sustainably grown,” Samantha Edwardes, spokeswoman for the company, said. “Most other nonalcoholic wines start with unwanted batches of wine. It could be from a winery that is selling it off because it didn’t meet their standards, or just low-quality wine in general. When you start with wine that was never intended for alcohol removal, there is no choice but to add a bunch of sugars and flavors to make it taste halfway decent. This is not how Sovi does things.”
Barrel Brothers Brewing Company in Windsor has been one of the leaders in the nonalcoholic beer movement.
“We have been doing alcohol removal in beer, wine and the spirits space for about three years. We do our own branded products and for a handful of other clients,” owner Wes Deal said. “I think a lot of people are curious about trying the category and many are younger.”
