It’s not very common to witness the coalescence of a novel drinks category in such a short time period the way we have with zero-proof drinks. Sure, soft drinks have been around forever, but the category of drinks that mimic the look and feel—and match the level of craftsmanship—of spirits, wines and beers is a decidedly recent, and rapid, phenomenon. But with such a swift boom comes the inevitable risk of an equally quick bust.
Seedlip (established in 2015) was one of the first brands to emerge in this category, followed by a trickle—and then a torrent—of brands popping up to fill what many saw was an unmet need. Now, in 2024, there are hundreds of brands of nonalcoholic wines, beers, spirits and other ready-to-drink beverages that seek to deliver the cultural and sensory experience of drinking alcohol to those who don’t. It is now a huge industry, reaching $11 billion in sales in 2022.
Meanwhile, a parallel success story was developing. Amid the shutdowns and disruptions of 2020, brick-and-mortar shops emerged that were dedicated to selling these nonalcoholic drinks. Spirited Away, located in downtown Manhattan, was one of the first on the scene, followed by a slew of others dotting the country. Of those shops, Boisson, founded in 2021 in Brooklyn, was by many accounts the most successful of them all. The company eventually opened stores in Miami and Los Angeles, built robust e-commerce wholesale divisions, and even had its eyes on international expansion.
In late March of this year, news broke that Boisson would be shutting down its eight retail stores. The first indication was a now-deleted social media post from an employee, but soon more concrete news emerged—including very clearly closed shops in New York—culminating with a lengthy LinkedIn statement from Nick Bodkins, one of Boisson’s founders. He shared that the company’s board of directors had decided to enter a restructuring process that included the immediate closure of the company’s retail locations and his departure from the company, while a subsequent post claimed that the company’s online and wholesale divisions would remain operational.
“Individual places like ours will always be needed, because not everybody wants to shop for nonalcoholic beverages in a place where they sell alcoholic beverages.”
It was impossible for those who follow the nonalcoholic drinks industry (me) to not wonder if this was an early sign of a zero-proof bubble bursting. What does it mean when the leading retailer in the nonalcoholic category suddenly evaporates? For owners of independent N/A bottle shops, it was not cause for alarm, but Boisson’s sudden closures certainly underscore some of the unique challenges facing a still-fledgling industry.
“Our business is growing stronger with every passing month,” says Douglas Watters, founder of Spirited Away. But despite growing consumer demand, he does find the business difficult, a sentiment echoed by Aqxyl Storms, founder of Minus Moonshine in Brooklyn. “We’re still a growing business,” they say, “and so we weren’t expecting a get-rich-quick thing. There’s not a lot of money in this industry, at least in the bottle shop area.”
Margins and profitability are particularly challenging for this nascent industry, where the cost of production can still be relatively high and customer tolerance for high prices is low, according to Jillian Barkley, founder of Soft Spirits in Los Angeles. “Even for things that we would consider ‘premium,’ there’s still a hesitancy and a skepticism from the clientele overall about how much they want to invest in this product.”
Despite this, bottle shop owners felt confident in their ability to offer a value-add that justified their existence, even if they could not compete with the likes of Whole Foods or Target—the latter of which recently announced a partnership with nonalcoholic retailer Sèchey to bring a selection of bottles to its stores—on price. “We stock what we love, not what we’re paid to stock. And it’s carefully curated,” says Storms. Barkley is confident that “if you ask a Target employee to give you the background on an adaptogenic, nonalcoholic spirit, they may not really be able to provide the same sort of education and information that my staff is especially trained to provide.” Additionally, Storms asserts that “individual places like ours will always be needed, because not everybody wants to shop for nonalcoholic beverages in a place where they sell alcoholic beverages.”
How the “Nogroni” Became a Flex
The Negroni, which is composed entirely of alcoholic ingredients, has become an unlikely holy grail for bartenders looking to master the N/A cocktail.
In fact, because of an odd quirk in New York State’s liquor laws, it’s legally impossible for a liquor store to sell nonalcoholic versions of the products they sell, which, for shops like Spirited Away and Minus Moonshine, has been a tailwind; the law creates a distinct niche. That could change, however, with a bill currently in the state senate that would allow traditional liquor stores to sell nonalcoholic versions of the products they currently sell, which could erode nonalcoholic bottle shops’ market share.
Even if this bill goes nowhere, not to mention in the plenty of other states that do not have similar legislative quirks, these retailers are faced with a broader legal and societal gray area that nonalcoholic drinks—specifically drinks that mimic the experience of alcohol-based drinks—seem to inhabit. Target’s new N/A partnership, for instance, is rolling out only at stores that are legally allowed to sell alcohol. Customers are still required to be over 21 in order to purchase, causing something of an uproar.
How to classify these drinks, and who exactly they are appropriate for, is still an unresolved question. Barkley thinks that the structures around nonalcoholic drinks still have some catching up to do. “Distributors still are asking us for our liquor license,” she says. “We’re going in circles trying to explain that we don’t need one.” Even Yelp struggles to classify her shop. “Are you a liquor store or a grocery store? Liquor store or a grocery store? And I’m like, ‘no.’”
Despite the uphill battle and the shockwaves caused by Boisson’s abrupt collapse, the nonalcoholic bottle shop industry appears to be sustainable, and owners are not giving in to catastrophizing. Barkley’s advice? “In any competitive business, you have to just keep your eyes on your own paper.”
Maybe the story of Boisson has less to do with the failure of an industry and more to do with the unsustainability of capitalism’s expectations; perhaps not every endeavor’s endpoint needs to be explosive growth and world domination. “I’m still moving ahead one step at a time,” says Storms. “Not everybody can be Starbucks.”
