It started with a personal observation: my social circle was ordering sparkling water at bars and apologizing for it. I started asking why. The data confirmed what I was seeing wasn't anecdotal.
The European picture is unambiguous: the ESPAD study — the most authoritative longitudinal survey on youth drinking across 35+ European countries, running since 1995 — shows lifetime alcohol use among European adolescents dropped from 88% in 1995 to 74% in 2024. Recent alcohol use fell from 55% to 43% over the same period. In France, the proportion of 17-year-olds who have never consumed alcohol multiplied from less than 5% in 2002 to nearly 20% in 2022 (French Observatory for Drugs and Addictive Behaviors, 2023). In Britain, more than a quarter of 16–25 year-olds now describe themselves as teetotallers, compared with just 15% of those over 55.
But the most recent data adds nuance: IWSR's 2025 survey of 26,000+ European consumers shows Gen Z alcohol abstinence dropped by up to 10 percentage points in Italy and 9 in the UK year-over-year. Gen Z isn't simply abstaining — they're choosing deliberately, occasion by occasion. NielsenIQ confirms this: 31% of European Gen Z say they're drinking less than before, but they're drinking less alcohol, not drinking less overall. That's the bigger opportunity: they want intentional drinks worth choosing, not substitutes.
The market reflects this: the mocktail market is growing at 10.5% CAGR through 2029 (Technavio). Dry January participation grew 36% year-over-year in 2025, and non-alcoholic beer purchases rose 22% in 2024 (NCSolutions).
The product gap was clear: wellness-focused people had nowhere designed for them. Cocktail blogs assumed alcohol. Wellness apps ignored taste. No platform combined ingredient science with a discovery experience worth the occasion. That was the brief I wrote for myself.
