How Sober Are You Planning To Be This October?
We all love rhymes. They help children develop learning patterns through informational recall from a young age. They make hip hop and rap MCs become legendary wordsmiths. They can also cement a yearly month-long battle cry for ethos-based-consumers and social media faithful to show their devotion to sobriety in a month that happens to rhyme with "sober". This is the world we live in, and it's gaining momentum!
I became the Ambassador for a non-alcoholic wine alternative brand back in September 2021, and my first Sober October was tasked with getting bars, restaurants, and stores to do activations, tastings, and events with our non-alc wares. The reception was luke-warm at best. Chalk it up to COVID, for a few reasons. On-premise businesses took the brunt of it, becoming to-go only stores and hustling to pivot on a dime. As we came out of that era, there was still some PTSD in the hospitality industry. According to the National Library of Medicine, of just about 1,000 adults polled on drinking habits during May 2020, 34.1% reported binge drinking. Additionally, 7.0% reported extreme binge drinking. Coupled with how much we all drank per capita during the worst of COVID, there were some adjustments necessary.
This month I plan to showcase some of the innovative and delicious non-alcoholic brands I have come to love during my foray into the non-alc space! For full disclosure, I am the Brand Ambassador for Proxies - and while they were be featured, so will a plethora of other boundary-pushing brands. With non-alc wine alternatives up nearly 25% year over year, it deserves some focus! I look forward to exploring these options with you as we enjoy some semblance of Sober October together in 2023.
