How to Sell Alcohol in Sobering Times

With no and low-alcohol categories on the rise and the sober-curious boogeyman around every corner, we needn’t wait for rock bottom to take a hard look at our sales strategy and make a change today. 

 

While much of the wine & spirits industry points the finger at Gen Z & Millennials, the World Health Organization or the Surgeon General, the truth is there’s only one entity responsible for the trajectory of our revenue. 

 

According to Navy SEALs Jocko Willink and Leif Babin in Extreme Ownership, when “problems feel overwhelming and insurmountable . . . it’s our human nature to shift blame, find excuses, and avoid consequences. But taking ownership over what went wrong and accepting the reality of the situation gives you complete control over how you can solve these challenges.”

 

Trying to sell alcohol in 2025 is tough. Plain and simple, no way around it. With that acknowledged, let’s explore what we can do about it.

 

A Sign of the Times

If there was one take-away from the recent WSWA Access Live convention, it was that traditional wine & spirits sales are down, and non-traditional and non-alcoholic beverages are here to stay. The convention’s “Opening General Session: A State of the Alcohol Industry” featured Winemaker and Doctor Laura Catena who spoke on the recent U.S. dietary guidelines on alcohol consumption, concluding that we should drink higher quality beverages, and less often. She was followed by Danny Brager and Dale Stratton of SipSource who pointed to plummeting sales, and a failure of on-premise sales to bounce back to post pandemic levels, concluding that we as an industry need to shift with changing demands. 

 

The buzz around non-alc and non-traditional beverages was on display at sessions like “More than a Trend: How Non-Alcoholic Wine & Spirits are Reshaping the Market” with speaker Stephanie Honig, and the “No & Low Mixology Workshop”. Those events drew crowds, but they paled in comparison to the boisterous gathering of the “Hemp Beverage Meet & Greet” presented by the Hemp Beverage Alliance. Granted, the location of the event being Denver, Colorado might have contributed to the popularity of the hemp beverage presence at the show.

 

In her session, Stephanie Honig, a member of the Honig winemaking family and founder of no-alcoholic wine brand Missing Thorn, said that her target audience is not solely sober or pregnant people, but that it is primarily made up of alcohol consumers who are looking to cut back for a multitude of reasons. She cited the aging “boomer” population that might be cutting back for health reasons, while the younger “Gen Z” generation are choosing to drink less alcohol in general. 

 

A Fruitless Battlefield

Skimming wine & spirits headlines, one gets the impression that the widely-regarded antidote to an increasingly sober society rests on our ability to change consumer perception: to prove “alcohol’s not so bad for you after all; it might even help you live longer!” so that young people change their minds and imbibe more frequently. 

 

If we could just get a modern Edward Bernays to make drinking cool again, these writers seem to think, then every tech bro and YouTuber would be out to liquid lunch again like some ramen-haired Don Draper. At last, we could get back to arguing about our favorite topics instead, like whether gruyère or butterkäse pairs better with a nice grüner veltliner.

 

In the opening paragraphs of Breakthrough Advertising, copywriting giant Eugene M. Schwartz offers a different take on the matter:

 

“Copy cannot create desire for a product. It can only take the hopes, dreams, fears, and desires that already exist in the hearts of millions of people, and focus those already-existing desires onto a particular product. This is the copy writer’s task: not to create this mass desire—but to channel and direct it.

 

Actually, it would be impossible for any one advertiser to spend enough money to actually create this mass desire. He can only exploit it. And he dies when he tries to run against it.”

 

It’s up to every beverage brand to figure out why people who do drink should drink their product in particular, rather than attempting to change their lapsed customers’ beliefs and behaviors with an already strained marketing budget.

 

Selling is Listening.

The nice thing about the fundamentals, or basic principles of sales & marketing is that they never change. Wildfires? Tariffs? War? Global Pandemic? To an accomplished brand strategist and copywriter, these are just another lens offering audience insights.

 

What mass desire or need does your product satisfy? Why is your brand the best at helping your ideal customer get what they want and become their actualized, ideal self? For a clear and simple explanation of how to script out your brand message, see Donald Miller’s Building A StoryBrand.

 

To sell more alcohol in the age of neo-prohibitionism’s growing influence and the rise of no and low-alcohol enjoyment, we need to understand our existing customers better. 

 

Start with repeat customers, your evangelists – the people who have given you money for your product(s) more than once. 

 

• Why did they choose you? 
• What are they getting out of your product? 
• When they consume your product, what else are they doing, with whom, and when? Do they order it out, or drink it at home? 
• Do they prefer it in bundles, or individual bottles? Cases, half cases? Single-servings like cans, 750ml, or large format?
• Is it a special occasion purchase, or their daily drinker? How much do they usually spend on a bottle of wine or whiskey?

• How much do they consume, and in what configuration – neat? In cocktails? Cold? Room temp? Over ice, up, on the rocks? 
• With a meal? Without a meal? Hosting tastings? Do they enjoy pairings, or couldn’t care less?
• What time of day?
• In what type of glass? Stemless or stemmed? In a lowball or a Glencairn?  
• In more than one sitting, the whole bottle, or split with friends? 
• What else do they drink? How often do they drink alcohol? What do they drink when they’re not drinking alcohol?
• How do they spend their free time? What circles or communities do they run in? What kind of person are they? What are their beliefs? What do they stand for?

 

Craft your brand messaging for this person, with their habits in mind. Go and find more of that person. Fish where the fish are, with bait that matches their prey of choice for that time and place.

 

One can go overboard with questions, sure – you needn’t request a blood panel (unless you’re selling wearable glucose monitors). The questions that are most relevant and strategic will depend on your go to market strategy, products, and brand. Mine these data with discretion, seeking insights that will inform your future outreach and define your ideal customer persona.

 

Fortunately, eCommerce and DTC sales have made historical customer data collection easier than ever. For just one example of this critical listening exercise, check out this recent Linkedin article from Go Brewing’s founder, Joe Chura, who generously shared some of their recent insights. 

 

Some eCommerce providers offer decent enough reporting to glean a lot of this information already, but there’s nothing wrong with outright asking customers in a survey. Producers who are dissatisfied with the native reporting capabilities of their eCommerce provider can always enlist custom third-party analytics and data warehousing for total command of this listening practice, with the added benefit of pulling from multiple data sources like 3 tier depletions, wine club/subscriptions, and tasting room sales.

 

Adopt, Adapt, or Accommodate?

In a market pressurized like an overcarbonated homebrew, the stakes feel higher. How do alcohol brands react to changing consumer habits and behaviors?

 

One detrimental consequence of obsessing over no and low-alcohol’s impact is that we tend to corral ourselves into thinking about alcohol by volume as a zero sum game. “If my customers are drinking more low alcohol options, that means they’re spending less on me!” That’s not necessarily the case, when you seriously consider how your product fits into the broader narrative of their lifestyle, and assimilate your message accordingly.

 

Customer alignment has always been the path to longevity in business. It’s up to each producer to decide if adopting or adding an NA option to their lineup is worth the investment.

 

Many wineries, distilleries, and breweries have already added NA offerings to their portfolio and are merrily selling both. Heineken hardly broke a sweat rolling out the world’s best-selling 0.0 ABV beer alongside their flagship offering. Even smaller craft distilleries are releasing creative additions to their regular lineup with botanical NA pours like Burnt Church Distillery’s Amethyst. Bev-alc brands looking to join the fray needn’t restrict themselves to simply alcohol-free expressions of their existing products; this decision, too, warrants a case-by-case (no pun intended) basis.

 

It’s not just producers cashing in on NA; unsurprisingly, early-adopter wholesalers with robust NA portfolios are seeing their revenue doubled in key markets like Utah — traditionally a relative blind spot in that dry desert.

 

Sporting a no or low-alcohol option doesn’t make any sense at all for many drinks brands. To “know thyself” is a gift; leaning into your authentic identity has the potential to further endear you to your audience and attune your brand to its proper niche. If your customer base never turns down or dries out, lowering your (alcohol by) volume could estrange your brand from their way of life. One misstep, unfortunately, is sometimes all it takes to fall out of alignment with our loyal customers – to catastrophic effect.

 

Unless you’re dead-set on all out war with non-alcoholic beverages, an alternative to selling your own NA offerings is to accommodate your existing customer’s preferences wherever applicable. If you find your loyal customers bringing their sober friends and family along for a visit to your tasting room, you likely only stand to gain guest satisfaction and repeat business by accommodating those needs with NA guest taps and a friendly, easy-to-find NA category on your menu.

 

When your existing website customers experience life change and can’t (or decide not to) drink for whatever reason, do they still have a way to signify membership in the brand identity you’ve cultivated together? Invite them to customize future shipments, ask for their opinion on future product development, or simply offer branded merchandise like top-notch glassware to enjoy their NA beverages in. Again, look for ways to participate in their lifestyle – barrel-age coffee beans from their favorite roaster in a cool collaboration, or arrange gift sets that make their lives easier around holidays. 

 

Actualize Your Sales Goals

Finally, once it’s clear where your beverage business fits into the big picture, the way to win in a competitive beverage landscape full of seemingly endless choices is to be extremely targeted and strategic with your limited resources in the market.

 

Tracking sales execution against goals and measuring the results is easier than ever before with specialized CRM tools geared towards beverage alcohol. Beverage brands are already leveraging leading indicators of success like survey questions at the account level to anticipate challenges and outmaneuver their competitors. 

 

There’s never been a more exciting time for consumers. Brands come and go, but our first love – enjoying the little things – isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.