Don’t Call It a Mocktail: Mixers Find Synergy With Non-Alc Movement

When the pandemic hit, bars closed, but the bottles didn’t. Forced into their homes, consumers began experimenting with making their favorite cocktails (and yes, we know a lot of you were doing it earlier in the day!). But too many Zoom-call hangovers meant that drinking at home had a behavioral backlash: many consumers began reevaluating their relationships with alcohol, with quite a few delving into what’s now called the “sober-curious lifestyle.”

Now that COVID’s impact on social settings has faded, premium mixer brands are taking what they learned during the pandemic back into on-premise locations, while also tapping a growing set of consumers: the low- and no-alcohol community.

Premium mixer brands are not only cultivating partnerships with zero-proof spirit brands in DTC and physical stores, but are seeing opportunity in the proliferation of non-alcoholic options at fine-dining restaurants and bars.

Low-and-no alcoholic beverage consumers are demanding more than a soft drink or seltzer from the soda gun behind the bar, instead looking for equally high-quality cocktails, just with less alcohol – or none – as part of the recipe. No- and low-alcohol consumption volumes grew by +5% in 2023 fetching a valuation of over $13 billion, according to data from IWSR; almost a sixth (17%) of all no-alcohol consumers in the past year were new entrants.

Thus far, much of this growth is being fueled from the NA beer category, where 72% of the volume resides; yet, the growing experimentation with NA spirits has become a boon to the mixer category: most zero-proof spirits require mixers to elevate the flavor profile when alcohol is removed or left out of a liquor.

The opportunity for mixers aligning with non-alcoholic spirits is “all about the experience,” said Joe Sepka, co-founder of beverage alcohol consulting group 3 Tier Beverages.

Mixology and inclusive socializing is a big part of the messaging among the non-alcoholic community. This fits nicely into the efforts of a new generation of mixer brands, who have tried in recent years to bring more consumers to mixed drinks.

Nuisance Attitudes Towards Drinking Breeds Innovation

In the past, mixers were meant to hide the alcohol with high sugar content and a “one size fits all mentality” where both low-quality and high-quality spirits could make the same drink, said Mark Tinus, founder of Ohio-based Simple Times Mixers.

Launched in 2017, Simple Times markets its products as clean-label, low-sugar mixers that fit into the evolution of the mixed drink category where consumers want “versatility” to create a better cocktail, either with or without alcohol.

‘Inclusivity’ might be a buzzword among the sober-curious community but Tinus said it is a hallmark of how the brand can “play a little bit of Switzerland” and let customers pair mixers with their spirit of choice.

“The whole point is to add value to these social occasions…and the reality is there is no one universal truth for everybody,” he said.

These days, among a group of friends, there are often a couple of people who are moderating their consumption of alcohol socially.

While Gen Z and Millennial consumers are largely driving the moderation trend, about 2/3 of adults say they are reducing alcohol consumption, showing clear evidence that people are drinking less across generations, according to IWSR.

Moderation is leading brands to “adapt their long-term strategies to target the more health-conscious consumer,” IWSR COO of consumer insights Richard Halstead wrote. “It’s a trend that’s likely to continue, simply because people are changing their lifestyle habits.”

Taking that approach, Simple Times has partnered with non-alc brands like Drink Monday, Ritual and a shandy, NA beer collaboration with BrewDog. In a change from pre-pandemic times, Simple Times has also aligned with “dry” events this year in Kansas City and Philadelphia to work with NA spirit brands on new activations.

This strategy allows mixer brands to not only play in a new market of consumers but also bring new distribution angles in control states or during trendy “dry” months like January and October, when bev-alc distributors are starting to see sales slump as people take a month off from booze.

Although the NA spirits category is still the smallest segment of NA alternatives, dollar sales increased 94% among NA spirits compared to a year ago, according to NielsenIQ data.

Ritual Zero Proof, a leading maker of spirit alternatives, reported that it partners with mixer brands like Q Mixers, Betty Buzz and Fever-Tree on activations. Through hundreds of sampling events, the company has tried to bring the NA category to new consumers through a pleasant cocktail experience.

“The premiumization of mixers recently only supports us because our whole thing is that we are not prescriptive. We’re not anti-alcohol in the least. We’re pro-options,” Ritual co-founder David Cooch said. “We just think you should be able to have your cocktail however you want, whenever you want.”

The On-Premise Play For Mixers

When Joshua Ellis and Bradley Ryan established WithCo. in 2017, it wasn’t with teetotaling in mind: the idea was to make a mixer brand for at-home cocktail drinkers that used real fruit juice, less sugar, and contained no preservatives or additives, Ellis said. The company has nevertheless found itself mixed into in the sober-curious movement unintentionally, he said.

“Where we have found ourselves was watching how our customers were consuming our product both in the home bar, as well as at the corner bar,” he said.

One of the lessons learned was that many consumers were enjoying WithCo. with NA spirits, including Grammy-nominated country music superstar Dierks Bentley. When the brand heard that Bentley, seeking to balance his relationship with spirits, had been drinking the brand without alcohol for two years, WithCo. reached out.

Not only did Bentley become an “authentic” brand ambassador and strategic investor, but he helped usher WithCo. into Walmart by scheduling a meeting with Walmart U.S. CEO and president John Furner. “This is why we wanted him involved,” Ellis said. “This was the power of the story.”

One of the main issues plaguing the hospitality industry in a post-pandemic world has been labor shortages. When nightlife shut down, many workers left the bar and restaurant business, and they haven’t returned.

While it’s a challenge for restaurants, it’s developed into an opportunity for mixer brands, they believe. They’re pushing ready-to-pour cocktail mixers as a cost-saving, high-quality solution to making individual drinks without the need for as many bartenders. That extends to the NA space, but the through line is offering quality when it’s unexpected. WithCo. has found its way to providing its products to bars at the Florida Panthers NHL arena and with NFL teams like the Carolina Panthers. The brand is targeting other hospitality accounts like hotels and restaurants as well as places where people “don’t expect to get a good cocktail,” like theme parks, Ellis said.

The strategy positions mixer brands to capitalize on the experiential nature of social drinking with the potential of a whole new consumer base that is finding different ways to enjoy a cocktail, with or without the booze.

Building brand awareness has been a big part of Fever-Tree’s expansion into the U.S., where it now has a larger market than its UK home. It’s also working to target NA consumers, via partnerships with zero-proof brands like Ritual or Lyre’s. These demos and endcap displays, featuring NA spirits with Fever-Tree’s various single-serve bottles of tonic, flavored sparkling waters and soft drinks, are intended to drive trial for all parties.

“It’s so important in the on-trade (on-premise) business as well,” said Fever-Tree North America CEO Charles Gibb. “We’re not so expensive for a consumer to try, but a bottle of non-alc spirit is quite expensive – so trying a single cocktail for $12 to $15 is a very good way to get in.”

The company’s bread-and-butter has always been its club soda and tonic water, where Fever-Tree occupies a 12% share of U.S. dollar sales in the category, but the brand has recently moved into high-growth varieties like ginger beer and, more recently, multiserve cocktail mixers ushered in when the brand acquired craft cocktail mixer maker Powell & Mahoney in September 2022. Earlier this year, Fever-Tree launched its own branded three-SKU line of mixers — Classic Bloody Mary, Classic Margarita and Light Margarita — to broaden its portfolio in the U.S.

For a legacy ingredient and foodservice provider like Monin, launching a six-SKU line of HomeCrafted Cocktail Mixers (Margarita, Cherry Smash, Strawberry Ginger Lemonade, Mai Tai, Spicy Watermelon Margarita and Dragon Fruit Cosmo) positioned the brand for the at-home cocktail consumer during COVID. But even as people returned to bars and restaurants, Monin execs say they’ve seen the mixers drawing attention from clients in entertainment concessions and concert venues.

“You can actually choose your own adventure with how you want your happy hour to go,” said Monin SVP of marketing Stasha Johnston.

Monin’s products do well on ecommerce channels but are expanding into new brick-and-mortar retail doors and beginning to offer them to on-premise clients as “frictionless alternatives” for alcohol reduction, Johnston said.

Playing Both Sides

Sometimes it’s about playing both sides and leaning into semantics: some drinks can be served as a mixer or as a standalone non-alcoholic beverage.

UK-based brand Longbottom & Co. entered the U.S. market with its single-serve canned Virgin Mary Bloody Mary mix last year. Abroad the brand has developed a following as a “stand alone” beverage that is a “bridge” between the mixer and non-alcoholic alternative categories, said Diana Mora, GM of brand and marketing at Longbottom & Co.

“We also call ourselves a gateway to the Bloody Mary,” she said. Represented in the name, the 8 oz. slim cans are “virgin” drinks that can be enjoyed on their own or mixed with a consumer’s spirit of choice.

In the UK, the brand has an alcoholic version of its RTD and expects to eventually release it stateside but, for now, Longbottom has seen success among the NA community.

Mora sees Longbottom tapping into the no- and low-consumer by giving the consumer the versatility to use the product in multiple ways.

“It doesn’t have to be all or nothing,” she said. “It’s great to be able to say I want to have one with alcohol now, maybe the next one will be non-alc. I think that’s the most important point, to be able to play on both sides.”