An impressive number of friends that I had gone out for dinner in the past months told me that they had stopped drinking. They did so two weeks ago, or have been off alcohol for several months. Their reasons for staying away from alcohol vary, like not feeling like it, feeling more health-conscious, or maybe having had one of their friends get a DUI and make them realize that this is not worth it.

Whatever their reasons are, I can relate to them. I stopped drinking two-and-a-half years ago. I just made it my New-Year’s-resolution. Not that I drank much before, but the occasional glass of wine every other day, or a beer with friends every other week. Going cold-turkey wasn’t really a problem. But still, for weeks you could feel a craving, and when you had made it a habit passing by the wine shelves in the supermarket, I had to stop it and look for an alternative route.

While some of my friends really went full non-alcohol, others may allow the occasional glass of champagne for celebrating a birthday. It’s more a spectrum of sobriety, in the sense of meat-eater <-> vegetarian <-> vegan.

Drinks Missing In Action

Drinking non-alcoholic beverages is easy, you think? Well,  here is the funny thing. While waiters hand you full booklets with dozens of pages of wines, cocktails, beers, and spirits, that restaurants give you at the dinner table, the non-alcoholic section is often not more than two or three lines. Sodas, juices, and water. And empathic waiters will give you the option to have a cocktail prepared without the alcohol.

It’s stunning. Almost no restaurant or bar has a selection of non-alcoholic drinks that you would call “a selection.” It’s like they are missing-in-action and nobody cares. While there are bar tenders specialized in cocktails of all sorts, and fancy restaurants having their own sommelier making wine recommendations, non-alcoholic drinks seem to be the step-children in the hospitality industry.