For most drink categories, there is generally some degree of consensus: We can all agree what beer is. We share a general understanding of what we mean by “wine.” And, thanks to strict legal definitions surrounding the spirit, we know exactly what makes bourbon bourbon. But the class of nonalcoholic—or N/A, or nonalc, or spirit-free—beverages is a developing frontier.
At their most basic, nonalcoholic drinks are those that do not contain alcohol, including water and ginger ale and chocolate milk, but obviously, we know, that isn’t what we’re talking about. So: Nonalcoholic drinks are… well, what? Drinks that serve the social function of alcohol? And what is that, exactly? To give you something to hold at a party? To do something, nonalcoholically, to impart some kind of buzz? It is an existential question. Even the brands shaping the space cannot completely agree on an answer.
“What’s really cool about the category is that actually, there is so much permission and so much room for innovation,” says Lorelei Bandrovschi, founder and CEO of the alcohol-free Listen Bar in New York City. And as the options within the nonalcoholic beverage market have exploded, so has the vocabulary to describe them. “It’s evolving as we speak,” says Victoria Watters, co-founder of Dry Atlas, a media company focused on alcohol alternatives (her preferred term). At the moment, the category is still largely defined in terms of what it isn’t: It is nonalcoholic. It is spirit-free and zero-proof. It is described in opposition to its alcohol-containing cousins, which is logical, for communication purposes—alcohol, after all, is still the default when it comes to adult-focused beverages served in fancy glasses—but it is also limiting.
Mostly, as of this writing, people talk about the flavor of N/A beverages the same way they do for booze, notes Laura Silverman, founder of the nonalcoholic information hub Zero Proof Nation: Drinks are hoppy, smoky, bitter, botanical. (There was an era, she points out, when the mouthfeel of nonalcoholic options was often, accurately, described as “thin,” but we are well past that now.) Instead, the current vocab of nonalcoholic drinking is focused on carving out a separate space—something distinct from booze but equal to it, with its own evolving subcategories.
Accordingly, the meanings of booze-free buzzwords are fuzzy, nuanced and often controversial. It is a language still in flux. But because all we have to go on is the present, here is a non-exhaustive guide to the very current lexicon of nonalcoholic drinks.
Adaptogens: Specific herbs, roots and fungi that are thought to help the body cope with stress and return to a more balanced state. Many of them have long histories in Eastern medicine; their role in Western medicine is… developing. Common examples include ashwagandha, ginseng, licorice root, lion’s mane, reishi and rhodiola rosea.
Alcohol alternatives: On occasions when one might typically drink an alcoholic beverage, a person might instead choose to nurse an alcohol alternative. Essentially synonymous with ANAs (see below), alcohol alternatives are drinks that 1. do not contain alcohol, and 2. occupy the logistical and emotional space otherwise occupied by alcohol. Some people argue that to qualify as a true alcohol alternative, a drink must also provide some kind of alcohol-esque buzz, though this is hardly the consensus.
Alcohol-free: A product that contains no detectable alcohol, meaning it has been tested by the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) and is—truly—0.0 percent alcohol by volume (ABV). All alcohol-free drinks are nonalcoholic, but not all nonalcoholic drinks qualify as alcohol-free.
ANA: N/A is the more common designation for the category, but some experts argue that “ANA”—for adult nonalcoholic beverage—is the superior term, because it specifies that the beverage in question is meant to capture the experience and/or social function of drinking alcohol. Seltzer, soda and milk, for example, are all technically N/A drinks, but they are not ANA drinks.
Analogue: Nonalcoholic versions of products traditionally containing alcohol. A spirit-free bourbon, for example, is a bourbon analogue, because it has a clear alcoholic counterpart.
Blends: A nonalcoholic product—typically a wine proxy—that has been produced not by dealcoholizing an alcoholic base, but rather by layering fruits, vinegars and/or teas with herbs and spices to create a similarly complex flavor profile.
Botanical: Literally, “derived from plants.” The use of this term often signals that this is not the kind of artificial sugar water one might have learned to expect from previous eras of nonalcoholic beverages.
Burn: The sensation of, well, burning associated with drinking high-proof alcohol. To successfully recreate that facet of the alcohol experience, a zero-proof analogue (see also: Analogue) must find another way to evoke a similar heat, sometimes via spices like ginger and chiles.
Canna bevs: Drinks infused with THC (a psychoactive compound in cannabis), with or without the addition of CBD.
California sober: Using weed but no other drugs or alcohol, as one does (supposedly) in the relaxed but (supposedly) health-conscious idyll of California. The term is also the original framework for describing one’s mind-altering consumption in terms of place, a classic source of jokes. Recent entrants to the category, via comedians on the internet, include: New York sober (no alcohol, yes meth); an alternative New York sober (no alcohol, yes cocaine); Berlin sober (no alcohol, yes ketamine) and Chicago sober (yes alcohol).
Now Entering the Golden Age of N/A Beer
In just five years, the category has moved beyond its staid roots to become a booming industry with its own cast of big-name players and independent upstarts.
Damp drinking, flex/flexi drinking: Various ways of describing an intentionally moderate—though not totally abstemious—relationship with alcohol with slightly different implications. While “damp drinking” is synonymous with (though perhaps somewhat less smug than) “mindful drinking” and indicates a purposeful reduction in alcohol consumption, “flex drinking”—Watters’ preferred term—implies alcohol neutrality, with no hierarchy between alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks.
Dealcoholization: The process of removing alcohol from a product that typically contains it, such as wine or beer. The two most common ways to do this are reverse osmosis—an elaborate filtering process that separates out the alcohol from the rest of the liquid—and vacuum distillation, during which the product is heated until the alcohol evaporates. Because both of these processes can mess with flavor, some producers, Athletic Brewing Co. chief among them, are very proud that they do not dealcoholize their products, but instead use proprietary brewing methods that prevent the production of alcohol in the first place.
Elixir, tonic: Drinks that do not have any prescriptive definition, but carry an appealing air of witchy mystery and/or 19th-century pharmaceuticals. Elixirs, in particular, sound intriguingly complex, and while neither term is regulated in any way, they both slyly imply—ironically or otherwise—some kind of curative state change.
Ferments (noun): A vague but cool- and sophisticated-sounding term for nonalcoholic fermented beverages that are meant to serve the same elevated social function as alcoholic ones.
Functional: Applies to drinks that serve some kind of mind- or mood-altering purpose beyond basic hydration. Typically, this means beverages that contain adaptogens and/or nootropics (see also: Adaptogens; Nootropics). Some people also consider infused beverages (see also: Infused) to be part of this category—they are, in many ways, extremely functional—but many do not. In the world of soft drinks, “functional” tends to mean “containing pre- or probiotics,” but this is not usually the case when describing alcohol alternatives (see also: Nonalcoholic; Alcohol alternative).
Infused beverage: In theory, “infusing” means to steep something (fruit, herbs, garlic, coffee beans) in some kind of liquid (water, oil, grain alcohol) for flavor and/or nutritional benefits. But in the realm of nonalcoholic drinks, “infused beverage” typically refers to only one type of infusion: THC, a psychoactive chemical in cannabis. In part, the label was devised to avoid violating the terms of service of social media platforms like Instagram.
Kava: Known for its calming and mood-enhancing effects—it gets compared to Xanax—kava, a drink made from the ground roots of the kava shrub, has been used socially and ceremonially for centuries in the Pacific Islands, and more recently has been gaining popularity as an alcohol alternative in the United States. Consuming kava is legal, if unregulated.
N/A, nonalcoholic, nonalc, spirit-free, zero-proof: Not-entirely-but-mostly interchangeable terms used to describe nonalcoholic drinks, which federal regulations define as drinks that have less than 0.5 percent ABV. Nobody agrees on the best term, although experts will debate their relative merits passionately. Still, they all mean pretty much the same thing: This drink does not, colloquially speaking, have booze in it.
Nootropics: Natural and synthetic substances that supposedly boost one’s cognitive abilities. Caffeine is by far the most common example—everybody’s doing it—but other players include 5-HTP, GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) and L-theanine. Some nootropics are also adaptogens—lion’s mane qualifies as both—and as a result, the two categories are often lumped together. (See also: Adaptogens; Functional.)
Zebra striping: This British term refers to the practice of alternating nonalcoholic and alcoholic drinks throughout an evening. Related to the also-British practice of “bookending,” wherein one begins and ends the evening with nonalcoholic options, but may have an alcohol-containing drink or two in between.
