Dan Pashman: Every Christmas season, I make a batch of homemade eggnog [LP O’Brien: Lovely.] using the recipe from Joy of Cooking and, I mean to me, it’s hilarious. If you make eggnog from scratch, it’s basically like a cake.

LP O’Brien: It’s eggs ... [LAUGHS] Lots.

Dan Pashman: Right, it’s like a dozen eggs, a pound of sugar, and a whole bunch of cream, but then instead of flour you use liquor.

LP O’Brien: Yeah. You’re preserving a [LAUGHS] cake batter.

Dan Pashman: It’s basically preserved cake batter that you can drink.

LP O’Brien: Well, eggnog is boozy.

Dan Pashman: Oh, it's very strong. Yeah, this stuff will knock you on your butt.

LP O’Brien: I can have one egg nog and I probably won’t finish it because it is a little bit too much of everything for me. 

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Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful, it's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show we obsess about food to learn more about people, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! I hope you ate all the turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes, or whatever it is that you look forward to eating on Thanksgiving. My Thanksgiving was very delicious, thank you for asking.

Dan Pashman: Now as we turn toward December, a couple quick notes. Remember that  my cookbook, Anything's Pastable, which was just named one of Wired's best cookbooks of 2024 is a great holiday gift as are all my pastas sold by Sfoglini. And they're available as a gift set. Buy them together, buy them separately, get them at Sofglini.com. Get Anything's Pastable wherever books are sold.

Dan Pashman: And we’re getting ready for our year-end episode, which means, I need your New Year's food resolutions. What food do you resolve to eat more of in the new year and why? Send me a voice memo with your name, first name's fine, your location and then tell me what food you're resolving to eat more of in the new year and why. Send me that voice memo to hello@sporkful.com and you can hear yourself in our big year end spectacular. 

Dan Pashman: Now onto the show and and speaking of the holidays, the holidays are a time when, yeah, we’re thinking a lot about food, right? But it’s also a time when many of us may have a few extra drinks. And others may be hanging out with people having a few extra drinks. 

Dan Pashman: That’s why this week I’m talking with LP O’Brien — she’s a mixologist in Washington D.C. She’s run drink programs in several top bars and restaurants, and she had a stint on a Netflix mixology competition show. Now she’s mostly working as a consultant, with an eye toward opening her own bar in D.C. next year.

Dan Pashman: But LP isn’t your average drink maker. After years spent concocting cocktails in restaurants and bars, she decided to go sober. And later on, she’ll tell us how this change actually made her a better mixologist.

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Dan Pashman: LP grew up in the Bronx, and didn’t drink in high school — she was the opposite of a rebellious teen, the fourth of eight kids who felt like she had to set an example for her younger siblings. Even once she moved to D.C. for college to study nursing, she still didn’t drink.

Dan Pashman: But she had a friend who worked at an upscale bar in D.C. called The Passenger and she found it was a great place to hole up and focus on her schoolwork.

LP O’Brien: I would go in the back, they had — next door had these amazing chicken sandwiches and Mexican Coca-Cola.

Dan Pashman: LP would sit in the back of the bar for hours. And she was struck by how the bartenders treated her.

LP O’Brien: They take such great care of me. You know, they check in, they pour me water, you know, things — they made me feel good. Hospitality, right? So then I started paying attention to what the bartenders were doing. And there was this, like, dance they did behind the bar when they spoke to guests about the same thing. Two guests sitting right next to each other could order the same thing and they would be given two completely different, amazing experiences. And for me watching that, I was like, whoa, that's like magical, you know?

Dan Pashman: So break that down for me. Like what would be the drink and what would be the two different experiences?

LP O’Brien: Let’s say it's a classic old-fashioned and you're regular and you come to the bar and it's like, hey, Joe, you want your Old Fashioned today. Well, let's try, you know, making it with miso and black walnut. And Joe's like, oh my God. Yeah, that sounds amazing, right? And so there's a, you know, another person sitting next to Joe and they're like, oh, what's an Old Fashioned? And now I'm hearing them spiel what an Old Fashioned is, asking what this individual is used to and accustomed to drinking, and then offering them an Old Fashioned, but a completely different one. And I'm like, how do they do — I just thought it was so cool that they were able to do that because it wasn't scripted. It was very natural, right?

Dan Pashman: Yeah, there’s an improvisational element.

LP O’Brien: Yeah. And you made two people feel very comfortable, very excited to experience, basically, the same thing, but catered to what they like, right? And I was like, I want to do that. That sounds so much more ... much more fun than what I'm doing every day, you know?

Dan Pashman: Now keep in mind, at this point LP was still working on finishing her nursing degree. But... it wouldn't hurt to get a side gig bartending at The Passenger or one of its sister restaurants, right? She asked the owner, Derek Brown, for a job.

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Dan Pashman: Now at a fancy cocktail bar like this, you don't jump into bartending with no experience. You gotta work your way up. LP became a server, and then a barback — basically a bartender’s assistant. She had a lot to learn.

LP O’Brien: I had to learn about how whiskey is made and understand mash bills and understand grains that are associated with whiskey and what regions different types of whiskey are made in and the difference between this filtration process and that one. 

Dan Pashman: In the middle of all this training, LP finished up her nursing degree. She got a nursing job on top of the bar gig. After a year and a half of this double life as a nurse and bar back, something unexpected happened.

LP O’Brien: We went to a GWAR concert with all my coworkers, which is so random.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] GWAR is like a heavy metal band from Richmond, Virginia, but they wear these, like, really awesome, rather dope, gory costumes, like monster costumes, right? So I'm this, like, 21-year-old little Black girl from the Bronx at this GWAR concert.

[LAUGHING]

LP O’Brien: Right? And they go into this mosh pit and I'm like, I'm good. I'm gonna stay back here. And then one of them comes out and their arm is completely, like, broken. 

Dan Pashman: Oh god.

LP O’Brien: It's bad. And [LAUGHS] I just remember Derek turning to me ...

Dan Pashman: That’s Derek Brown, the owner of the bar.

LP O’Brien: He goes, "You're bartending on Friday ..."

[LAUGHING]

LP O’Brien: And I was like ... I was like, "What are you talking about, sir?" [LAUGHS]

Dan Pashman: Another good reason to avoid mosh pits.

LP O’Brien: Yeah, seriously.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

LP O’Brien: So Derek sits at service bar with me, all Friday shift and I bartend and I was terrified. And I had studied up until that point, knowing classic cocktails and understanding the menu cocktails. But then I was getting requests for things like, "I need a 50-50 wet martini, da da da ..." And I was like, I don't know how to make that! Like, what does that even mean?

Dan Pashman: Right.

LP O’Brien: You know? And Derek's like, "Okay, let me walk you through it." And he would walk me through it. But I think for me in that moment, this owner, who probably has many other things to do, invested time in me and sat there the entire shift and made sure that I was able to do what I was supposed to do.

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LP O’Brien: And I knew from that moment on that I was gonna do nothing else. Like, that was — I was like, "All right, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life."

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Dan Pashman: That one shift made LP quit her nursing job. She went all in on bartending. But at first, her career change was a bit of a secret. Her parents still thought she was working as a nurse.

LP O’Brien: My mom kept calling, "How's work?" And I was like, "Work is great." I mean, I wasn't going to lie to my mom, but I wasn't going to tell her that I wasn't a nurse anymore.

Dan Pashman: Right. Right. [LAUGHS]

LP O’Brien: But I was like, okay, so how do I break the news to my parents that I quit my nursing job after all the sacrifices they made. Because the exposure we had to bartending in the Bronx was Applebee's. It was very different. And so I invite them to DC. I'm like, "I would love for you guys to come to D.C. and visit and we can go to dinner."

Dan Pashman: At this point, LP was spending most of her time bartending at another one of Derek's restaurants, called Eat the Rich. So she told her parents to meet her there for dinner. Except when they got there ... LP was behind the bar.

LP O’Brien: They're like, "Why are you behind the bar?" And I was like, "Oh, I work here." My mom was like, "What??"

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

LP O’Brien: "What do you mean you work here?" And I was like, "Yeah, I ... I'm a bartender." And my dad was like, "Oh boy," and you can see his face — like he understood what was happening. My mom was like, not getting it. So at the end of the meal, I come out and my shift's over. And I was like, "Yeah, so I left my nursing job. I'm pursuing this as a career." And she was, like, so mad, my mom did not talk to me for months.

Dan Pashman: What happened that made her come around?

LP O’Brien: My dad made me apologize. I was like, "What am I apologizing for?" And I think What I didn't realize is that my mom also comes from a very different time. She was born, like, while the Jim Crow laws were still in act. So, for her, it's security. For her, it's stability. For her, it's being protected.

Dan Pashman: LP’s mom accepted her apology. So with her parents' blessing, LP got deeper and deeper into the world of mixology.

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Dan Pashman: She was learning so much, getting certified and trained in all different kinds of things related to the craft — like a sommelier certification and cicerone certification. Eventually, she worked her way up to running the entire beverage program at the three sister restaurants where she'd first studied for her nursing degree. Because these restaurants were already pretty well known, she then started getting invitations to speak on panels and at conferences around the world. She'd forward those flyers to her parents, just to make sure they understood the success — and they were, she says, very proud of her.

Dan Pashman: Then in 2022, LP was approached by Netflix. They were developing a new reality competition show for mixologists, called Drink Masters, and they wanted her to be a contestant. LP said yes. And she did extremely well, making it to the finale. In the last episode, the challenge was to make three drinks that are connected to each other and to the mixologist's personal story.

LP O’Brien: I really wanted to lean into the contributions that African Americans had on, honestly, the cocktails and spirits, while connecting each of my drinks with an element of tea — because tea is such a huge part of African American culture. And so, I had kind of a strategy from the beginning through the end. I didn't want to show them too much of what I was able and capable of doing because I felt that if I gave them all the bells and whistles and there was nowhere to grow ...

Dan Pashman: Oh, you were holding back on purpose.

LP O’Brien: I was holding back ...

Dan Pashman: Wow, that is ... That's savvy.

LP O’Brien: [LAUGHS] I was holding back.

Dan Pashman: But also risky, because what if you get eliminated?

LP O’Brien: Exactly.

Dan Pashman: And you're like, oh, I shouldn't have held back.

LP O’Brien: I know. 

Dan Pashman: One of the skills LP was holding back? She’d been practicing all kinds of different techniques with the cooks at her most recent workplace. She decided that in the finale, she’d do more than make drinks. She would add food pairings, even though it wasn’t required — a bold move considering she had five hours to come up with and make everything. And she went hard on those food pairings.

LP O’Brien: One of the things I did in the finale was make a Baked Alaska, which is crazy ..

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS]

LP O’Brien: Because who does that? Who does that?

Dan Pashman: LP paired the baked Alaska with a cocktail that had date-infused cognac, milk punch, and Earl Grey dry ice.

CLIP (LP O'BRIEN): Take a bite of the dessert, and then a sip of the cocktail. Any traditional Black family always has tea in their home. When I was a kid, that's all my mom drank. She really loves any tea ...

Dan Pashman: She also made a cocktail with gin and green tea, paired with an edible cherry mint sphere, and a cocktail made with cheese-infused rye — yes, I said cheese-infused rye, and black tea, that she paired with mac and cheese.

CLIP (JUDGE 1): I cannot believe that you made a baked Alaska and a mac and cheese today?

Dan Pashman: The judges were floored …

CLIP (JUDGE 2): I think there’s going to be a lot of people, especially young Black women that go like, never thought about doing something like this ...

CLIP (LP O'BRIEN): I hope so ... 

Dan Pashman: And at the end of the episode, they announced the winner: 

CLIP (HOST): The first Ultimate Drink Master is … LP.

LP O’Brien: Oh god.

[APPLAUSE]

CLIP (HOST): Congratulations LP, you are the Ultimate Drink Master ...

Dan Pashman: Winning the competition changed LP’s career, and her personal life.

LP O’Brien: It definitely amplified my platform. And I won't beat around the bush about it. It was hard. It was hard. There's a lot of pressure that comes with, "Well, when are you opening a bar?", or, you know, like —  and bar is not necessarily the ultimate success or like, that's not necessarily like the end all be all for a successful, you know, beverage entrepreneur.

Dan Pashman: Right. There's also just, like, you win something like that and there's an expectation, like there's a path that people expect that you're going to follow.

LP O’Brien: Yeah, exactly.

Dan Pashman: And if you ... If that's not what you want, then people almost kind of — like, it doesn't compute.

LP O’Brien: Yeah, and I think I got in my head a little bit because I was like, "Well, I ... I have to do this now," like I, I'm racing against the clock.

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Dan Pashman: But in the end, LP decided to forget about the clock. She went in a very different direction. Instead of taking a bigger role working in bars and restaurants, she stepped back. She wanted to consult for a range of places, helping them set up their bar programs, without being too involved with one. And she also made another big change.

LP O’Brien: I made a decision to get married and have a family, [LAUGHS] you know focus on that.

Dan Pashman: The decision to get married and have a baby is big for anyone, but especially for someone whose career is in booze. Because when LP got pregnant, she had to stop drinking. And she found it surprisingly easy, especially after the switch to consulting.

LP O’Brien: Prior to getting pregnant, I really wasn't imbibing nearly as much. I think when you're working in a bar environment, and, you know, your shift is over and you're all going out as a team and you're taking like a shot, a lot of that just becomes habitual. And because I hadn't been working in a bar, it wasn't this stress coping mechanism that I had integrated into my day-to-day either. I certainly can say it used to be.

Dan Pashman: LP says she never had any kind of drinking problem. It's just that being sober felt better.

LP O’Brien: There was so much more mental clarity. I was such a better taster. After having the baby, just made the decision to kind of continue on the path of sobriety.

Dan Pashman: That's right: The award-winning mixologist stopped drinking for good. And with that decision, she found herself in the middle of one of the beverage industry's biggest trends. Stick around.

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+++ BREAK +++

 

Dan Pashman: And now a moment for our partner American Express.

Dan Pashman: I don't have enough time to go into full detail on all the things I love about my AmEx Gold Cards. And yes, it is cards, plural. I have a personal AmEx Gold Card and a Business AmEx Gold Card. But today, I'm gonna talk to you about my personal AmEx Gold Card. What I love about my personal Gold Card is that I get 4 times points at restaurants globally on up to $50,000 annually. When I travel, I rack up more membership rewards points that I can then use to take my family on a trip. Also, I love AmEx customer service. When I need support with my card, they're there to help. And look, if you're an eater like me, the AmEx Gold Card is the way to go. Cardholders can enroll and earn up to $120 back in statement credits after paying at participating partners up to 10 bucks each month. And you can get up to $100 back annually after you pay with the American Express Gold Card to dine at U.S. Resy restaurants, or make other eligible Resy purchases. Honestly, with my AmEx Gold card, I just feel like a V.I.P. and I always feel like I'm racking up points. AmEx Gold can help elevate your dining experiences, allowing you to check out new restaurants, connect with your family and friends, and explore exciting flavors all while earning rewards points. That is the powerful backing of American Express. For terms and to learn more, visit AmericanExpress.com/withAmEx.

 

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Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful, I’m Dan Pashman. On our episode from two weeks ago, I talked with my friend and former colleague Abigail Keel. Abigail is super into food, she loves to cook, loves to go out to eat. But one day a couple years ago, something very unexpected happened. She was at home, just standing in her kitchen ... 

CLIP (ABIGAIL KEEL): All of a sudden, I just got this kind of weird headache and felt super dizzy ...

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CLIP (ABIGAIL KEEL): And needed to close my eyes, like, couldn't have them open otherwise I felt like everything was spinning.  

Dan Pashman: This feeling Abigail was experiencing, it's called vertigo. And it can be very severe. People get so dizzy they fall and get hurt. The nausea alone can be debilitating. It started happening to her regularly, and she didn’t know what was causing it. Looking for answers, she was confronted with a startling possibility. Maybe it was coming from inside the kitchen. We follow Abigail as she attempts to unravel this medical mystery, and struggles to deal with the emotional impact of having to make a big change to how she eats. That episode is up now, get it wherever you got this one. 

Dan Pashman: Now, back to LP O’Brien. LP decided to stop drinking nearly two years ago. And get this:

LP O’Brien: I've found that I've become a way better mixologist and bartender in not imbibing.

Dan Pashman: So how is that possible? I mean, obviously, tasting is a big part of her job. But LP points out that you can taste without actually drinking.

LP O’Brien: For professional spirits and wine judges, they swirl it in their mouth and then expel for obvious reasons. One, they'd be really drunk if they did swallow all of that, right? But two, it does fatigue your palate after a while.

Dan Pashman: Expel is the nicer, more polite version of saying spit it out.

LP O’Brien: [LAUGHS] Yeah.

Dan Pashman: Right. [LAUGHS]

LP O’Brien: Spit it out sounds so gross.

Dan Pashman: Right. Right, right, right. I just want to make sure everyone's keeping up. So, what’s the technique for swirling without swallowing the drink?

LP O’Brien: You definitely have to make sure that it's touching every part of your — the inside of your mouth, right? So, what we usually advise is — you taste with your nose as well. And so, typically, we would say you want to, purse your lips and then inhale, while the drink is in the glass.

Dan Pashman: Okay.

LP O’Brien: Like tip it to the side. And then what that does is allows your body to be introduced to this, like, initial layer of senses. But think about it. If you were drinking a mojito and before you take a sip of your mojito, that mint sprig is right in your face. It's kind of the same thing. 

Dan Pashman: Right.

LP O’Brien: So at that point, then you would you would place the spirit in your mouth, you'd swirl it on your mouth, expel, and then you'd put it in your mouth again, at which point that second introduction to your palate would really be where you're closing your eyes, focusing on the flavor profiles that you taste. In something like whiskey, it might be I taste, you know, caramel. I taste marshmallow. I taste, chocolate or cacao. And then you might describe it with elements such as, it is full-bodied. So a full-bodied spirit would be something that feels a bit oily on the palate. And texture is a huge part of drinking.

Dan Pashman: Now we should say, traditionally, being sober has meant complete abstinence from alcohol, including tasting without swallowing. But for LP, who doesn’t feel she’s had an issue with drinking, tasting and spitting works for her. 

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Dan Pashman: And her sobriety has led her down a new path in mixology: non-alcoholic beverages. As a consultant, she's often working with restaurants to develop NA options for their menus. I was curious to know a little bit more about how LP thinks about creating these drinks. But first, I asked her what she thinks of the word "mocktail".

LP O’Brien: So I think that the beverage industry fought the word mocktail for so long. Here's the thing. At the end of the day, the consumers are gonna call it whatever they call it. So if mocktail is how they identify with it, don't fight it. But correct them. So this is what I tend to do and say. I think a mocktail is a Shirley Temple. It's a sweet, sugary drink that I would be okay giving to a child to drink. But a non-alcoholic beverage or a boozeless beverage is — it's an adult drink. It's something I want, you know? It has complexity, has texture, has sophistication associated with it. And takes the same thought process as any other drink with alcohol would take.

Dan Pashman: When you try to develop a drink like that, to me, the first challenge is going to be, like, sweetness.

LP O’Brien: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: Because, you know, so many cocktails are basically like, okay, you have this strong flavored spirit, you're going to add some kind of other things that are going to balance the intensity of the spirit. Once you take the spirit out, I would always worry that it's going to be too sweet. So how do you work — how do you deal with that?

LP O’Brien: So Derek Brown wrote a book called Spirit, Sugar, Bitter, Water. So that's the definition of a cocktail ...

Dan Pashman: That sounds like the drink's version of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat.

LP O’Brien: Yeah. [LAUGHS] Seriously. And the idea behind that is it defines a cocktail. So that's the definition of an Old Fashioned. But if you add citrus, that's now a definition of a sour. You add egg white with soda water, that's a definition of a Fizz, right? So you kind of build off of that. The reason I bring that up is because when we're making beverages, the way that we think of them when they're a non-alcoholic is quite different. We're now compensating for texture, a lack of density. We need additional complexity in flavor. So how do we do that? And we do it a couple of different ways. So if I'm making, let's say, a Collins, by definition, it's gin, lemonade, soda water. Very simple. But this Collins has no alcohol in it. What are some things I can do to compensate for that lack of texture? Well, if I have some sort of carbonation incorporated in the drink, I've already kind of helped my case. But gin, and the addition of gin, has botanicals, which adds complexity. So maybe I add a tea of some sort or a tea syrup of some sort to make up for that lack of complexity. Now, depending on how long I steep my tea, I might incorporate tannins, which are most commonly associated with wine. When you take a sip of wine, for instance, or even tea that's been steeped too long, when you have that sensation on your tongue that makes your lips kind of pucker, it dries out your palate.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, it's, like, a little bitter.

LP O’Brien: Yeah, exactly. Those are tannins. And so sometimes you do want that in a drink, because it does add complexity. It does add texture, right? But not too much. So it's a little bit of a balance. 

Dan Pashman: I would think that if you're saying, okay, I'm going to make a non-alcoholic version of a classic cocktail than anyone who drinks that, who has had the version with alcohol, it's always going to be comparing it …

LP O’Brien: 100 percent!

Dan Pashman: Right. So like, is it almost easier to just throw out the comparison and say, I'm going to create this non-alcoholic beverage from scratch so that you don't have anything to compare it to?

LP O’Brien: I think we need a baseline from a creative process standpoint and the same way we make cocktails. Classics are tried and true. They are proportions and a combination of flavors that will work every single time. Now as you become more knowledgeable in the history of different spirits, and how they're made, what is incorporated them from an ingredient standpoint and how they're distilled, you start to understand how that does impact flavor and texture, right? ABV, you know, alcohol by volume, how that plays a factor in how you dilute your drink or what types of drinks that you put it in.

Dan Pashman: So one approach for non-alcoholic cocktails: Take inspiration from a classic mixed drink. But LP says there are also non-alcoholic classics she can also pull inspiration from. Like, when she was growing up in the Bronx, she was exposed to drinks from a range of cultures. 

LP O’Brien: That could be anything like agua de jamaica, when I was at, you know, a girlfriend's house or, something like a non-alcoholic Italian spritz, which was very typical for my friend whose family was from Sicily. Those cultural drinks — those are also tried and true.

Dan Pashman: LP's decision to go sober might be unusual, given her line of work. But she’s definitely not the only one who’s starting to think more about non-alcoholic beverage options.

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Dan Pashman: You probably see NA drinks popping up everywhere, from your craft cocktail bar to the beer aisle at your local grocery store. 

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Dan Pashman: Caitlin Lovegrove has noticed it too. She’s a senior consultant for the company Numerator, which provides consumer research and insights. Basically, they collect and analyze data from people’s receipts and frequent shopper cards. And earlier this year, Caitlin wrote a whole report on the non-alcoholic beverage industry in the U.S. My first question for her: How do you even define a non-alcoholic beverage?

Caitlin Lovegrove: Yeah, I mean, even the definition's a little bit tricky, right? Because when you're not drinking alcohol, are you drinking a substitute? Or are you drinking something like a fruit juice instead? And where do you draw that line?

Dan Pashman: Caitlin says that for their study, they were looking at non-alcoholic beer,  non-alcoholic wine, and as LP calls them, boozeless beverages — or mocktails. Caitlin’s study didn’t include soda, seltzer, juice, energy drinks, or kombucha — none of that. I asked her to give me the big picture of what's happening in the NA space right now.

Caitlin Lovegrove: We're seeing about a, over the last four years, what we're calling a 20 percent compound annual growth rate, which means that 20 percent year over year, we're seeing that kind of growth. When we looked at the analysis, it was the second fastest growing category in all of beverage alcohol. Only ready to drink cocktails were growing faster. Now, I'll caveat that by saying that it's still super tiny. So when I'm talking about super fast growth, right, if you start with a really small number, then it's going to get really impressive percentages. So when we're looking at share of alcohol, I just pulled it, and about four years ago, it was at 0.4 percent and now it's at 0.6 percent. 

Dan Pashman: In other words, sales of NA drinks are growing quickly, but it’s still less than one percent of alcoholic drinks. Caitlin says there are a few reasons for the growth, but there’s one main driver among people they looked at.

Caitlin Lovegrove: When we surveyed them, they said health was one of the number one reasons why they're drinking less. And so as they're shifting their behaviors, they're choosing maybe a non-alcoholic alternative to some of the times when they would otherwise drink, but they're not necessarily stopping from purchasing alcohol overall. People who are buying non-alcoholic beverages aren't necessarily buying them because they've stopped drinking. They're buying them sort of in addition to their alcoholic beverages. For example, the people who are buying non-alcoholic beverages were about 40 percent more likely to be drinking two or more times a week than people buying any alcoholic beverage. So they were already kind of heavy drinkers and they're just saying, "Okay, you know what? I still want to keep my habits, but maybe I'm just substituting non out for some of those occasions." 97 percent of non-alcoholic buyers were also buying alcohol, so almost all of them.

Dan Pashman: Now this data is just from retail stores, so it's not telling us how people are drinking in restaurants and bars. But still, 97 percent is a pretty big number. One other shift that Caitlin’s noticed in the market is less quantifiable. And that’s the perception of non-alcoholic beers, wines, or spirits.

Caitlin Lovegrove: If you think ten years ago, you think of the stigma that came along with something like an O'Doul's, and buying it at a bar kind of signified, "Oh, that person has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, that's why they're buying an O'Doul's." Now, first of all, there's more options, which makes it delicious, but you can also buy or drink one of these non-alc options and not have that stigma associated with it. So it's just a different category than it used to be.

Dan Pashman: Caitlin attributes a lot of this perception shift to Athletic Brewing, which is one of the biggest companies that exclusively manufactures non-alcoholic beers.

Caitlin Lovegrove: They've positioned themselves to say, "We're not for people who have an issue with alcohol. We're for people who like to drink beer while they're on the ski lift, but want to keep skiing moguls," and so they're going to drink a non-alcoholic beer so they can have that athletic capability with them. And that kind of shifted the conversation. And you see it bleed into some of the other brands.

Dan Pashman: Am I right that now White Claw is doing a non-alcoholic hard seltzer? Like it's a hard seltzer that's not hard?

Caitlin Lovegrove: Yes. Yeah.

Dan Pashman: How is that different from seltzer?

Caitlin Lovegrove: There's actually quite a few, I'd say, brands that are positioning themselves as sort of non-alcohol alternatives for sort of socializing occasions, where you maybe don't want to showcase that you're not drinking, but maybe you want to sort of — maybe you're the designated driver, or maybe you just want to, you know, maintain a level so that you have a little bit more awareness? So I think that's where that White Claw Zero comes into play. I think that's where they were trying to position themselves. You know, you order a seltzer at a bar, you get it in, like, the different cup with the signifier that it's not alcohol.

Dan Pashman: Right.

Caitlin Lovegrove: It's very clear that you are not drinking to anyone watching. Whereas you order like a White Claw Zero, it's in a similar can. It still kind of looks cool to what we were talking about before. It's kind of a similar play to Liquid Death, if you're familiar?

Dan Pashman: Right, which is just water.

Caitlin Lovegrove: Just water. Yeah.

Dan Pashman: But it's in a can. It looks like a can of beer, and it's like a skull [Caitlin Lovegrove: Exactly.] and crossbones on it.

Caitlin Lovegrove: Right. It's more about the vibe, right? It's about ...

Dan Pashman: The packaging matters. Packaging matters.

Caitlin Lovegrove: Yeah. And it's marketing and it's good marketing.

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Dan Pashman: So non-alcoholic drinks are one of the fastest growing sectors in the beverage industry, but they still are right now, very small in relation to everything else that's out there. How big do you think they can get?

Caitlin Lovegrove: I mean, as much as we talk about people are drinking less alcohol, and people are, you know, more aware of health issues with drinking alcohol, it's a huge, you know, constant juggernaut of a category, and I think any declines we're gonna see in that are gonna be slow in coming.

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Dan Pashman: As for LP O’Brien, last year she became a co-owner of Siponey, a company that makes ready-to-drink, non-alcoholic cocktails in cans. One is marketed as a play on a paloma, another as a play on a mule, etc. LP thinks of the Siponey drinks as standalone, or as mixers. So you can keep them non-alc by just adding a garnish like mint or lime juice or a rim of honey and cinnamon sugar. Or you can mix in alcohol.

LP O’Brien: I think the coolest thing about this is that you can kind of experiment with flavor profiles. It's an opportunity to get to know those spirits that you have at home a little bit better to see what works and what doesn't work. You don't even need to put a full ounce and a half. If you want a little low-ABV beverage, 0.75 ounces an ounce is perfectly fine.

Dan Pashman: I want more restaurants to have low-alcohol cocktails.

LP O’Brien: Yeah, I agree.

Dan Pashman: Especially, if I go out to dinner, I want to be hungry to enjoy the food. So I sit down at the table, my stomach's empty. And the server comes along and says, "What ... Can I get you started on a cocktail?" And I'd like a cocktail, but if I — it could be a little while before I start eating food. And if I start drinking that cocktail, I'm going to be drunker than I want to be very quickly. I often wish there was a low alcohol cocktail or, like, you know, in Europe, they often will give you like a 0.3 liter beer.

LP O’Brien: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Dan Pashman: Like, I don't wanna, I don't wanna be all filled up on beer, I wanna save some space for the food, but I'm in the mood for a beer.

LP O’Brien: I agree.

Dan Pashman: So, like, I wish that I could get, like, a small beer, or a cocktail that's, like, half strength.

LP O’Brien: I agree. I think that's important. I think we're seeing a lot more of that. I mean, I always said if I open a bar, I'm going to have half pours of beer and wine. We'll do mini martinis. I think when we're talking about versatility on a menu, it's versatility in color and in glassware and in style of spirit, but it's also in serving options and low ABV options as well.

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Dan Pashman: As we enter the holiday season, LP is looking forward to a few classic seasonal beverages. Because as she says, being sober doesn’t mean giving up on time honored drinks. She now makes NA versions of two of her favorites.

LP O’Brien: The two drinks that come to mind for the holiday is, one, coquito for sure.

Dan Pashman: Yup.

LP O’Brien: Which is basically the better version of eggnog ...

[LAUGHING]

LP O’Brien: If you've never had it. [LAUGHS] And then some sort of mulled wine. And for those who don’t know what mulled wine is, it's essentially wine that is warm and served with a variety of different spices, citrus, a little bit of spiced honey. It's delicious.

Dan Pashman: Hmm. Yeah, my wife's family is Eastern European and they do spiced wine there too. You generally prefer red or white spiced wine?

LP O’Brien: You know, I've actually recently got on the bandwagon for the spiced white wine. You know, it just depends on the mood, I guess, but they're both delicious.

Dan Pashman: What is this season like for a person who doesn’t drink alcohol?

LP O’Brien: Oh, it’s great. I definitely stay out of the family arguments, so that's awesome.

[LAUGHING]

LP O’Brien: No, it's great. I think I've gotten a lot more accustomed to making NA options, especially because my younger sisters, there's four of them, are of drinking age, but they usually don't drink. And so they always have a really grand time when I can bring a bottle of NA wine, or they're just so intrigued by the options. And so, one of the things I look forward to quite often is going home to my parents house playing Scrabble. My parents always had a Scrabble board in the house. And this past year, we bought my dad like the master — you know, the Scrabble boards are expensive now.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]

LP O’Brien: There's like a 200 dollar master edition, you know?

Dan Pashman: Oh wow.

LP O’Brien: So we bought this board for him. And last year, I bought, you know, some prosecco for my dad, but I bought NA wine for me and my sisters and they were like, "We can't even tell the difference." So it's usually NA wine, some NA beer for me, and then I will bring some options with alcohol for the rest of the family.

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LP O’Brien: For me, it's just about that social element aspect, right? Like, it's kind of habitual. It's like, I just want something in my hand that tastes delicious, that I can enjoy with food, um, and to be around the laughs and the happy moments. 

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Dan Pashman: That’s LP O’Brien, she’s a co-owner of Siponey Spritz Co. She also runs a company in D.C. that does events, called LP Drinks. You can follow her on Instagram @lpdrinksdc, or you can follow her nascent bar concept, @barlienzo.

Dan Pashman: Also, get this. We’re also posting LP’s recipe for non-alcoholic mulled wine so you can try making it at home for the holidays. Find that on Instagram @thesporkful, or on our website, sporkful.com. 

Dan Pashman: Remember to send in your New Year’s food resolutions! Record a voice memo with your first name, location, and what you resolve to eat more of in the new year and why. Send it to me at hello@sporkful.com

Dan Pashman: Next week on the show, I’m talking with cookbook authors Kristina Cho and Bryan Ford. If everything had gone as originally planned in their lives, Kristina would be an architect, and Bryan would be an accountant. Instead, they are award winning authors who have written some of the most exciting cookbooks of this year. That’s next week. 

Dan Pashman: While you’re waiting for that one, check out last week’s episode with the comedian and co-host of the Handsome podcast, Fortune Feimster.

Dan Pashman: And hey, did you know that you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? Then there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXM.com/sporkful.

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Dan Pashman: Thank you to our presenting sponsor American Express. AmEx Gold makes your dining experiences more rewarding so you can discover more, connect more, and experience more dining moments. Elevate every meal with the benefits that come with American Express Gold. For terms and to learn more, visit AmericanExpress.com/withamex.