Getting ready for the holiday season, and want to make sure you are catering to the sober crowd during your events? While everyone loves having a drink in their hand during conversations, more people are opting out of hangovers and headaches from traditional alcoholic beverages and opting in for non-alcohol fun and flavor, especially around the holidays.

Alcohol used to be the reason why many people attended a party, but now it is a reason why many choose not to attend parties. Some choose not to drink for health reasons, including pregnancy, scheduling, personal beliefs, and lifestyle choices, or they are the designated driver.  Therefore, it is becoming more important to include a variety of non-alcoholic beverages at your holiday events this season beyond just soda water and lime.

Here are some tips to help make the most of your holiday event and be inclusive to all who attend.  And, to assist with sourcing and food pairings for NA beverages, try the Better Rhodes “Better Without” app.

Some Advice for the Host

In order to make the most of your holiday event and be inclusive to all who attend, below are a few key points to keep in mind. 

• Offer Equality: The bar should be stocked with a good mix and quality of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Water or club soda with lime are boring non-alcoholic options, offering something fun and delicious will have everyone at the party lining up for one.
• Offer Mocktails: To keep your guests socially engaged and feeling included, have mocktail menu items along with cocktails.
• Train Wait Staff: Walking up to the bar and asking for a non-alcoholic beverage can be a social anxiety trigger and a good enough reason to stay home. Your alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks should be presented and prominently displayed on the menu. If you have wait staff, make sure they know the menu and speak to all beverage options fluidly and neutrally.
• Provide a Heads Up: It’s important that your guests know you take everyone into consideration. Let your guest know ahead of time or upon arrival that you have alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages available at the bar. This can relieve any stress they felt to attend the party and it loosens the shackles of being peer pressured into drinking. 
• Add NA Options to Food Pairings: Just like alcoholic beverages, NA alternatives can be nicely paired with food and will ensure all of your guests have something to cheers. The diversity of flavor profiles ensures that there will be something to appeal to every palette.
• Don’t Push Alcohol: Lastly and most importantly do not push anyone to drink and don’t make it a thing when someone turns down a drink, don’t ask them why, they have their reasons and it’s not your business to ask at a party. 

Better Without App – The World’s First App For Alcohol-Free Discovery!

Today, you can choose from dozens of different brands that make it easier to include non-alcoholic drinks on the menu. From wine to beer to spirits, there is a large selection of delightful non-alcoholic options that you can use to stock your bar this holiday season.

With so many amazing non-alcoholic beverages available in the market, where do you find them for the holidays? One option is Better Rhodes, which is an online marketplace that makes it easy to discover non-alcoholic and alcohol-free options that taste great. They offer the best brands from the US and around the world from wine, spirits, and beer to everything in between.

Better Rhodes has teamed up with Better Without to create the world’s first alcohol-free app. Find your new favorite alcohol-free and non-alcoholic drinks, and the places that sell them. The app also allows you to filter by taste, ABV, and dietary requirements, and even find tried-and-tested food pairings.

Features include: 

• Simple search: Find your drinks, your way. Filter by taste, ABV, dietary requirements and more. You can find tried-and-tested food pairings.
• Wish lists: Curate your own lists of delicious drinks and perfect places. Use them however you like – save your favorites or plan your next pour. The choice, as always, is yours.
• Recommendations: Tell us what you like, and we’ll tell you when something new arrives that fits the bill. Make sure you’re never caught out of the loop again.
• Reviews and badges: Don’t just tap into the community’s wisdom – contribute some of your own! Review drinks and places and unlock your badges.
• Your activity: See all your reviews, wish lists, and badges, all in one place. For a quick snapshot of your app activity. 

The Secret Behind Great-Tasting Non-Alcoholic Beverages

The secret behind great-tasting non-alcoholic beverages is using the right technology. BevZero utilizes a unique process of thin film vacuum distillation which enables low-temperature distillation to separate the spirit/alcohol from the de-alcoholic beverage and the essence in one single step. Unlike other products that complete this in three steps, this single-step process treats the product gently and with as little olfactory impact as possible.

The result is a product that tastes how it would with alcohol. Wines taste like wine. Beers taste like beer. Enjoy the taste you love, minus all the after-effects.

If you are interested in creating your own non-alcoholic product, give BevZero a call.