Sober Curiosity: 2025 Update
Published 06 January 2025
Mindful drinking will continue to appeal to Gen Zers and millennials in 2025, with wellbeing and cost-of-living concerns contributing to its appeal. Sober(ish) lifestyle choices are playing out across typically booze-orientated social situations, including on dates, while watching sports and during celebratory occasions.
Temperance is Thriving
Augmenting Alcohol-Free Experiences
The Low/No Boom
Gen Zers and millennials are leading the way when it comes to pursuing sober-curious lifestyles. They’re reducing their alcoholic beverages intake in line with their health goals and frugal attitudes to spending. Tactics like zebra striping and book-ending are helping them limit their alcohol consumption without sacrificing it entirely. For earlier thinking, see Sober Curiosity Evolves.
Gen Zers and millennials are leading the way when it comes to pursuing sober-curious lifestyles. They’re reducing their alcoholic beverages intake in line with their health goals and frugal attitudes to spending. Tactics like zebra striping and book-ending are helping them limit their alcohol consumption without sacrificing it entirely. For earlier thinking, see Sober Curiosity Evolves.
Many consumers are rejecting the notion that copious amounts of alcohol are needed to lubricate social interactions. Instead, they’re choosing to cap their intake of alcoholic beverages – or abandon them altogether – when socialising. This mindset is fuelling widespread interest in ‘dry dating’ as well as staying sober while watching sporting events.
The buoyant low/no-alcohol product space is set to grow, mostly fuelled by moderate drinkers consuming these beverages in addition to their alcoholic counterparts. Non-alcoholic beer is by far the biggest opportunity, accounting for 86.1% of the total no/low-alcohol sector value in 2024 (Nielsen, 2024), but innovation in spirits is also causing this category to blossom.
Sober Curiosity: 2025 Update
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