Forget the hangover, under-25s turn to mindful drinking

Forget pub crawls – increasing numbers of young people are replacing beer and wine with “mindful drinking” – where abstinence, not alcohol, is all the rage. 

A fifth of British adults under-25 are teetotal, according to the Office for National Statistics, and numbers are on the rise. Motivated by health and income concerns, this new generation are bucking the trend of their parents, and choosing to drink in moderation, or not at all.

“Young people are drinking less, but pubs aren’t keeping up with what they want,” says Laura Willoughby, the founder of Club Soda, a guide that rates pubs based on the quality of non-alcoholic beverages on offer. Willoughby began reviewing hundreds of bars and pubs in London last year and now the guide is about to go national.

“Club Soda is a mindful drinking movement. It’s about changing the way you think and feel about alcohol. For a lot of people, mindful drinking means switching to a lower percentage drink, cutting down for a week, doing a sober sprint, or trying out an alcohol-free for size,” Willoughby says. “The pubs that get this, that realise not everyone is drinking – they’re the ones that are thriving.”

Five million people signed up to Dry January this year, according to a YouGov poll, and Alcohol Concern says participants on its New Year campaign have quadrupled in three years. Research by Public Health England suggests 67% of people will cut back over the rest of the year, while 8% will stay dry altogether.

Sam Chambers gave up drinking two years ago but hated staying in on Friday night while her friends were out drinking. “I Googled something like ‘can I go out and not drink’ – and it came back with a ‘mindful pub crawl’,” she says. “I was really scared at first because I’m used to the drink helping me through but it was really good fun. I thought, wow, I’m actually connecting with people, I’m enjoying the moment and I’m getting home safe”.

For Charlie McVeigh, owner of the Draft House pub chain, offering a decent selection of non-alcoholic drinks has made all the difference to the traditionally quiet start of the year. Low and no-alcohol craft beers like Big Drop Stout, Fitbeer, Brewdog Nanny State and Nirvana have become big hits, he says, and customers are increasingly asking for them by brand.

“Historically we haven’t been that great at stocking non-alcoholic drinks but we now really focus on it. We had a record January,” says McVeigh. Inevitably the drinks giants are keeping a close eye on the trend.

Last year Diageo liked the look of one brand, Seedlip, so much that it bought a stake in the company. It was its first move into the non-alcoholic drinks market in the UK driven, the company says, by an acknowledgement that drinking habits are changing.

“We realise there are occasions when people aren’t going to drink, and yes, people are becoming more aware of what goes into their body, so we want to be able to offer options that cater to different lifestyles,” a Diageo spokesperson said. 

Seedlip’s 33-year-old founder, Ben Branson, came up with the idea for a non-alcoholic spirit because he was fed up with fruit juices and feeling he had to leave the pub early. He made the first batches using mint from his garden – and then started experimenting with herbs, spices, peels and barks, using a copper still he picked up cheap online. He says he can’t believe how quickly the drink has taken off. “It’s been completely surreal,” he says. “From sitting on my kitchen floor, hand-labelling and hand-filling bottles a year ago, to selling a thousand bottles in less than three weeks in Selfridges. It’s mad.”

Branson believes the brand is tapping into a growing desire among younger people for homegrown, organic and sustainable food and drink, and he likes to think of his business as a “nature company, not a drinks company”.

It’s caught the attention of the Royal Horticultural Society, which has invited him to design a garden for this year’s Chelsea Flower Show. The idea is to tell the story of Seedlip, from a 17th-century apothecary recipe book Branson discovered to one of the UK’s trendiest non-alcoholic tipples. “They want a new audience coming to the show and they see us as a great fit,” he says.

Club Soda’s Willoughby thinks “mindful drinking” is a movement with unstoppable momentum. She’s about to announce the UK’s first mindful drinking festival – in London’s Bermondsey Square in August – with non-alcoholic beer tasting, “mocktail” mixing and food pairing demonstrations. “It will be like a beer festival but without the hangover,” she says.