‘You’re paying not to feel terrible the next day’: Are we being ripped off by the high cost of non-alcoholic booze?

When I was a teenager, drinking alcohol was the marker of the cool and glamorous. They were the ones who snuck into their parents’ liquor cabinets to decant vodka into plastic bottles and bring to parties. My best friend, the ultimate cool girl, introduced me to Midori melon liqueur from her mother’s stash. It seemed so aspirational at the time. But now, less than 15 years later, all the cool kids just aren’t drinking alcohol any more.

With trends like “sober curious” and “mindful drinking” steadily on the rise, particularly among Gen Z and younger millennials, it seems alcohol has lost its sparkle. There are now two months in the year in which people are encouraged to give up the bottle – Dry January and Sober October – with more than 175,000 taking part in the former this year. To meet the demand, restaurants, bars and pubs have expanded their non-alcoholic (NA) drinks offerings beyond fruit juices and fizzy drinks.

NA cocktails are now all the rage, with nearly every venue offering its own menu. But, more often than not, the prices of these alternatives are eye-watering. I’ve seen them cost anywhere between £11 and £20, which seems totally outrageous when there isn’t any alcohol in them. Every peer and stranger I’ve spoken to about the prices of NA beverages has agreed with me and asked: why on earth are they nearly (or just as) expensive as a stiff drink?

It has nothing to do with alcohol duty, as the tax is only imposed on drinks with alcoholic strength exceeding 1.2 per cent. NA or low-alcohol cocktails and beers are therefore exempt from it. While beers in this space are relatively pocket-friendly, NA cocktails still seem to be subject to mind-bogglingly high prices. With more people leaning towards reducing their booze intake or ditching it altogether, surely it’s in everybody’s best interest to make their alcohol-free alternatives more affordable?

The answer as to why this isn’t the case lies in how they’re made. Angus Lugsdin, co-founder and director of New London Light, which produces NA spirits and aperitifs, explains that NA drinks are not – as I have heard them described and, admittedly, thought to myself – “glorified juices”.

For some NA spirit makers, each bottle starts life as a regular spirit would – in a distillery. They are flavoured with the same botanicals, like juniper and citrus for gin, which are soaked in 40 per cent ABV grain spirit. The flavours bind to alcohol in a particular way, and it is very difficult to recreate them without it. But, whereas a gin would be finished and bottled shortly after this step, an NA spirit must go through further processing to remove the alcohol. The steeped alcohol goes through an additional distillation in a rotary vacuum still, which removes the alcohol without removing the flavour.

Vacuum distillation technologies and equipment are extremely costly, setting producers back millions of pounds, not to mention the energy and upkeep costs required. After dealcoholisation, the NA spirit has to go through further processing as it needs to be adjusted for flavour and “bite”, as well as stabilised with preservatives as it now has no alcohol to make it last.

Lugsdin and Howard Davies, who founded the Salcombe Distilling Company together in 2016, decided to venture into NA spirits because they weren’t impressed with what was already on the market. “In terms of flavour profile, everything seemed to be second-rate,” he says. “If you were looking for a replacement for alcohol or if you really loved a gin and tonic but wanted something non-alcoholic, you really struggled to find it at the time.” He points to Seedlip, which dominated the NA market after its launch as the world’s first distilled NA spirits brand in 2015. It has since been acquired by multinational alcohol mammoth Diageo, which also has Guinness, Bailey’s, Pimm’s, Captain Morgan and many more brands under its umbrella.

Seedlip became the go-to NA spirit for gin lovers who wanted to get off alcohol; I remember my sister-in-law, a gin obsessive, being given a bottle of it when she became pregnant with her first child. But since then, Lugsdin says, much of the NA offerings from big corporations have been disappointing in flavour. “We didn’t feel the bar was being set very high,” he says. With their NA gin First Light, they set out to not just recreate the same sting and flavour that alcohol has but also to try and change the way we view – and value – the drinking experience.

There’s also the creation of the cocktails themselves. Simone Spagnoli, head of bars for Inception Group, which operates bars across London including the Mr Fogg’s family, says they use the same “premium ingredients” in both their alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails. “Add to this the smaller selection of NA bitters, vermouths, liqueurs and other elements that go into our cocktails, [and] demand is high and therefore so are costs,” he points out.

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Beyond the costs of making NA spirits and creating NA cocktails is the fact that people need to be convinced of the value of these drinks. Emmi Edwards and Luke Cousins, who founded Brighton’s first low-alcohol bar and store, Torstigbar, are trying to educate and spread the NA gospel. So far, they have found plenty of success in Brighton, and are planning to open a bar in London in 2024.

“People view alcohol as a reward for the end of a hard day or week – that’s why they’re willing to pay so much for it,” Cousins says. “But an NA drink tastes just as good, can give you exactly the same experience in a bar, in nice glassware, in good company, and the next day you feel absolutely fine, or even great. That’s where the value really lies.”

Edwards adds: “We’re trying to change and challenge the perception that just because it doesn’t have alcohol in it, it means it should be cheaper. Think of it as: you’re paying not to feel crap the next day. It’s a big societal challenge because that’s the mental barrier people have. But you really can have the same experience. We’ve been on this journey of discovering new products and we found some really impressive NA products that even have a burn that goes all the way down your throat as you drink it – there’s so much chemistry that goes into that.”

Hearing all of this has made me think harder about why I drink alcohol. Sure, it makes me more likely to chat with strangers or pick up the mic during karaoke. But I don’t relish pounding temples and roiling stomach acids the next day, or the feeling of “hangxiety” that makes me rewind every word I said and every bit of eye contact I made the previous night. It’s the same for more than a third (36 per cent) of young adults, too, who say hangxiety was one of the reasons they’re choosing to reduce their alcohol consumption.

Drinking alcohol is a society-wide habit in the UK. Recently, a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) crowned British women the world’s biggest female drinkers, with both sexes ranking joint third in the world for binge-drinking rates. So convincing more people to drink less alcohol might be tricky. But what if the NA spirit looked just like a regular spirit? What if ordering an NA cocktail at the bar looked and sounded no different to what everybody else was getting? If it looks like a cocktail, smells like a cocktail and tastes like a cocktail, does it matter if it has alcohol in it or not?

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With the way the market is heading, the answer appears to be no, it doesn’t. Demand for NA beverages remains high, with Mintel estimating that the alcohol-free and low-alcohol category was worth £255m in 2022. An estimated 40 per cent of UK adults are trying to moderate their alcohol consumption, while around half of shoppers switch between alcoholic and NA drinks during the same occasion, such as a party. It suggests that people want more options.

Lugsdin adds that, as it becomes less rare for someone to opt for an NA drink while out on the town, there will be a steady incline in demand. “People are starting to understand that you can have the same experience and ritual and occasion without alcohol. I would encourage people to look into the difference between the quality of what small producers are making and compare it to the bigger players. You’ll see that, for us, it’s always about taste, and that’s always going to be valuable.”

New London Light First Light, £25 (70cl bottle)

This non-alcoholic spirit is as close to gin as you can get without the hangover, even down to the “burn” of alcohol, which is recreated with habanero and ginger.

Strykk not vanilla v*dka, £18 (70cl)

This not-vodka is infused with Madagascan vanilla beans and has a warm finish thanks to capsicum. It’s perfect for recreating retro cocktails like the porn star martini and white Russian. Rated four out of five stars by IndyBest.

Crossip Dandy Smoke, £22 (50cl)

To achieve the smokiness of whisky, this award-winning non-alcoholic spirit uses lapsang souchong tea, which gives it an almost spicy, herbal note.

Caleno Dark & Spicy, £18 (50cl)

Rum lovers have sung the praises of this tropical non-alcoholic spirit, which blends pineapple, coconut, ginger, vanilla, kola nut and lime. It sounds like a cocktail in and of itself but is rather wonderful with the addition of ginger ale.

The Social Elixir, £24.99 (70cl)

Billed as a “functional spirit alternative”, The Social Elixir is a dark herbal drink that claims to depart a “blissful” feeling. It’s drawn mixed reviews overall, but most people agree its flavours of malt and liquorice echo absinthe or Ricard.