WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Becca White has been sober for about six years, but as a social person, it’s hard not to be around people who are consuming alcohol.
There’s been a revolution in recent decades in craft beer and cocktails. But White, a Democratic state senator from Wilder, doesn’t feel left out.
“I like to have something fun when I’m out because I like to feel included,” White said in June at Sip and Social, a mixer at the Upper Valley Food Co-op in White River Junction where she is a board member.
Mocktails were among the event’s rhubarb-themed refreshments.
White and others have discovered that craft non-alcoholic options are often as abundant as their alcoholic counterparts. Menus offer sodas and sparkling waters, but also multi-step libations made from muddled fruit, zero-proof spirits, herbs and tonics. In other words, mocktails.
Their growing popularity fits with a longstanding turn toward handcrafted and local food, beer, wine and spirits, but without the buzz.
The proliferation of these gussied-up non-alcoholic drinks also coincides with record low drinking rates in the U.S.
Last year the global analytics firm Gallup reported that just 54% of adult Americans said they consume alcohol, a 10% drop from a decade prior.
The trend aligns with the population’s growing concerns about alcohol’s negative health effects, with 53% of Americans saying that consuming “one or two drinks a day” is “bad for one’s health,” the Gallup study reported.
Excessive alcohol consumption has been found to cause heart disease, high blood pressure, liver disease and other adverse health effects, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Religious beliefs also can play a part in people’s choice to abstain from drinking alcohol.
‘The same level of care’
“I definitely think that people’s drinking habits have shifted in the last couple years,” said Owen Daniel-McCarter, who runs Babes Bar in Bethel with his partner Jesse Plotsky.
He found that coming out of the coronavirus pandemic more customers were in search of a non-alcoholic option, either because they were sober or drinking less.
Around the same time, he and Plotsky quit drinking and their own curiosity about alcohol-free drinks began to grow.
Non-alcoholic beer has been a part of Babes’ menu since the bar opened in 2018, but as the demand for non-alcoholic libations began to grow, the owners decided to offer mocktails, too.
Under the heading “No Buzz Cocktails,” the Babes menu lists eight options, with playful names such as the Phony Negroni and the Ginless Gimlet.
The Apern/al Spritz mixes Italian Spritz No Alcohol Spirit from the Australian non-alcoholic beverage company Lyre’s, sparkling water and lemon. There’s also the Lower Manhattan, which combines non-alcoholic whiskey and Aperitif Rosso, bitters and a cherry.
“We really wanted (the list) to be visually on the menu,” as opposed to separate and tucked away, Daniel-McCarter said.
That philosophy goes for how the mocktails are prepared, too.
It can mean a lot “for someone who’s ordering an n/a spirit, to watch someone make it and see that we’re putting the same level of care into it that we’re putting into a regular cocktail,” Daniel-McCarter said.
The mocktails all go for $7, while Babes’ cocktails cost $10 to $15.
“We want them to be affordable,” Daniel-McCarter said of the No Buzz Cocktails.
Babes’ owners were also thoughtful in designing their non-alcoholic beer list.
Often when Daniel-McCarter ordered a non-alcoholic beer on a night out, he’d end up with a “dusty” bottle that was “maybe expired,” he said.
He and Plotsky wanted Babes to offer something more than that, a curated list that customers would be excited to order from.
The current non-alcoholic beer list features six non-alcoholic options, ranging from an IPA to a 0.0 Heineken and Stella Artois, with prices between $3.5 and $5.
Curating the list has become something of a passion project for the owners, especially as more alcohol-free beers have hit the market.
“When first getting sober, drinking n/a beer because I was craving beer. Now it’s usually because there’s something I haven’t tried before,” Daniel-McCarter said.
‘What they want’
Personal preference plays a strong role in cocktail culture. Dry? Neat? Rocks? Olives? A twist? The same is true of mixing mocktails, said Lilith Fedorko, director of operations at Putnam’s Vine/yard, the White River Junction cafe and wine bar.
Some customers want a faithful imitation of their favorite cocktail, while others are hoping for something that doesn’t taste like alcohol at all.
“That’s the joy of being a bartender is having conversations with people to figure out what they want,” Fedorko said.
She’s noticed that the bar’s mocktails are most popular among people in their 30s and the over 60s crowd, but they’ve also been a hit on “mommy and me dates.”
The bar’s mocktail list often riffs off their existing cocktail menu. The $14.78 Stubborn Mule, for instance, is a a zero-proof take on a Moscow Mule, with notes of blueberry and lavender, and the $14.49 Tiny Dancer is an an alcohol-free version of a Pornstar Martini, which traditionally contains vanilla vodka, passion fruit, lime and cava.
Sometimes the resemblance between the mocktail and its alcoholic version is so strong that Fedorko has to reassure her customers she gave them the alcohol-free version.
Other times, it can be a challenge to replicate the notes of a beverage without the aid of alcohol.
That’s especially true when it comes to wine.
“I find that oftentimes the n/a wine game is really tricky because it’s hard to get the complex flavors” found in alcoholic wine, Fedorko said.
But at Putnam’s, “wine is our baby,” Fedorko said, so the business still stocks a dealcoholized Sauvignon Blanc.
Fresh and local
As with cocktails, and food culture more generally, the mocktail movement centers fresh, local ingredients. That’s part of the impetus behind the Sip and Social events that Wellness Manager Sunshine Sargent has been hosting at the Upper Valley Food Co-op in White River Junction.
Each month, as part of the village’s First Friday festivities, Sargent picks a different ingredient to build a mocktail and several light dishes around. Visitors are encouraged to enjoy the free refreshments and learn how to recreate them with produce from the co-op.
The rhubarb-themed Sip and Social on June 5 featured a spread of rhubarb salsa, rhubarb chutney atop a gooey wheel of brie and thin finger-length slices of rhubarb grilled cheese — baked strips of the stalk along with honey and caramelized onion jack cheese sandwiched between buttered slices of bread.
Behind the sampling of offerings, Sargent mixed a rhubarb syrup made of stewed stalks and sugar, with tonic water and mint to create a semi-sweet libation. It’s the kind of drink she’d make for her kids with rhubarb from her garden, or add gin to make a spiked version for herself.
A sober event like Sip and Social aligns with the co-op’s ethos as an alcohol-free grocery store.
Co-op board President Tina Barney couldn’t say for certain why the nonprofit, founded in 1976, originally decided not to stock alcohol, but she acknowledged that the decision has created a “safe place” for people who want to shop in a sober environment.
The Sip and Socials are open to everyone, but many of the people at the June 5 event were sober.
Marlys Eddy, a Braintree, Vt., resident who teaches at Hartford High School, gave up drinking after the World Health Organization published a statement in 2023 that no amount of alcohol consumption is safe for a person’s health.
While bars and restaurants often have a bevy of non-alcoholic beverages to choose from, Eddy often struggles to find a mocktail that isn’t too sweet.
“I don’t want to drink juice,” she said, so she often goes for a seltzer or non-alcoholic beer on an evening out.
Kevin Costigan, of Bristol, N.H., however, enjoys a mocktail as a non-alcoholic option because it feels “extra special” and involves a “little more care” than a seltzer, he said at the Sip and Social.
Costigan, who has been sober for five years, prefers that his non-alcoholic drinks don’t taste like alcohol. Instead, he likes a fresh, minty flavor, or a zero-proof beer.
Something sweet
A growing thirst for non-alcoholic beverages has also given rise to a sugary, technicolor option: the dirty soda.
A customizable combination of soda, creams and flavored syrups, dirty soda emerged in Utah, the heart of Mormon country, as members of the religion were looking for creative beverage alternatives to coffee, tea and alcohol, which are forbidden.
Thanks in part to its virality on TikTok, dirty soda has become a national sensation, with the market expected to exceed $70 million, Forbes reported this year.
Dirty soda chains such as Utah-based Swig, which has over 150 locations nationwide, though none in New England, also have contributed to the concoction’s growing popularity.
McDonald’s and the cookie franchise Crumbl Cookies, which both have locations in West Lebanon, added dirty sodas to their U.S. menus earlier this year.
Dirty soda also has arrived in the Upper Valley by way of Sap Shack, a pop-up store that Randolph resident Brooke Burgee opened at the beginning of June at Wood’s Sugar House on Hebard Hill Road.
Burgee lived in Utah for 15 years before moving back to Randolph in 2025 to be close to her family. After amassing hundreds of TikTok followers on her account @brookeandmaple where she posted videos of her mixing dirty sodas, she approached Wood’s Vermont Syrup Co. owner Al Wood about doing a four-month pop-up in a section of his sugarhouse.
Burgee then got to work transforming the space into the Sap Shack, a kind of Wonka’s emporium, with fridges stocked with dozens of sodas, creamers and Starbucks coffee drinks.
On June 11, Sydney Trogley and Caelyn Burgon, two Mormon sisters on an 18-month mission in New England, stopped by the Sap Shack to catch up with Burgee and enjoy a dirty soda. The shop is a kind of oasis for the sisters, where they can get a taste of home.
“I dreamed of the day when we could have dirty soda again,” Burgon, 19, of Utah, said at the Shack. She used to work at a Swig, where the line of cars for dirty soda could lead to standstill traffic on days when the chain ran a special deal.
For Burgon’s drink, Burgee added acid-green Mountain Dew, a drizzle of grenadine and coconut syrup to a small mound of whipped cream. When the cup was full, she topped it off with more whipped cream, Sour Patch Kids, cherries and a peach-flavored gummy that hung from pretzel stick garnish.
The result was a visual cacophony of green-red liquid sloshing below a mountainous pile of cream and a rockslide of sugary shapes.
Burgon sipped her soda approvingly as Burgee worked on Trogley’s order, a Dr. Pepper base with pina colada syrup, French vanilla creamer, whipped cream, and the same candy accoutrements as her friend’s drink.
“The mad scientist strikes again,” Burgee joked as she built Trogley’s drink.
Dirty sodas at the Sap Shack sell for $6.50, $7.50 or $8.50, depending on complexity.
While business has been steady at the Shack, Burgee recognizes that most of her audience from her social media is scattered across the country. After her pop-up is finished, she hopes to take her dirty soda business on the road, concocting sweet beverages for anyone who’s interested.
And so the zero-proof Gospel continues to spread.
