No or low alcohol drinks

No or low alcohol drink is now the trend, their consumption is growing rapidly, if initially was beer, it then became wine and now it is spirits as well. Almost every alcoholic drink has now its no or low alcohol version, still, I don’t get them.

It maybe me, it may be my Italian roots, but I don’t understand their purpose. Non alcoholic drinks have always been available, they are called soft drinks, and soft drinks nowadays are much more than coke or Fanta.

In the last few years, thanks to artisan soft drink makers, plenty of not alcoholic drinks have become available, most of them have been used as mixers, tonic water is possibly the most famous of all, but they were originally created as an alternative to alcoholic drinks and some of them, can easily pair food.

I will personally never choose a no or low alcohol drink over an alcoholic one, I may have only a small glass but a no alcohol chardonnay will never taste like a proper chardonnay, it could be more or less bad, but it will never provide the same experience and pleasure of drinking the real wine. Drinking a glass of wine, is not just about the liquid in the bottle, but also the smelling, the tasting, the evolution of the wine in the glass. A no or low alcohol wine it is just a one dimension drink.

However it is a trend and as such, as a business we can't ignore it and we are not, however, no alcohol wine or spirits is something Italians don’t do, except Peroni which we all know it is not Italian, and the ones I tried, not Italian, were not good, I didn’t like any of them, some tasted like juice and some had a very funny taste, some had bubbles, so for the time being we are staying off the low or no alcohol trend, we don’t want to jump on the wagon only because of financial reasons, and we stick to my granddad saying of “have only a glass if you can't or don’t to want have more”, if he was still with us I would not believe the trend.

If the reason behind the trend is to avoid alcohol abuse, I don’t think no or low alcohol drinks are the solution.