The Mixologist Who Stopped Drinking

The holidays are a time when many of us have a few extra drinks — or spend time with people having a few extra drinks. This week we’re talking with LP O’Brien, an award-winning mixologist in Washington, DC. A couple years back, she decided to quit drinking, a decision that she says made her better at her job.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

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• 0:42Dan Pashman?

  The mini golf alone is probably worth, it's like the mini golf capital of the country. They have the most incredible elaborate mini golf courses. They also have more than 80 championship full-size golf courses, plus 60 miles of beautiful coastline, all-season sunshine. Of course, you can relax by the beach or the pool. There's also jet skiing, fishing charters, paddle boarding, and of course, food. Oh man, did we eat well in Myrtle Beach. From fresh local seafood to craft burgers and craft beers to kebabs on the boardwalk. With more than 2,000 restaurants to choose from, from legendary no-frill seafood shacks to chef-driven dining, Myrtle Beach has it all, plus live entertainment. At the beach, there's always something epic going on. So, summer may be winding down, but in Myrtle Beach, you're gonna find the coastal vacation of your dreams all year long.

• 1:27Dan Pashman?

  Start planning your ultimate beach vacation at visitmyrtlebeach.com.

• 1:34Dan Pashman?

  Every Christmas season, I make a batch of homemade eggnog, using the recipe from Joy of Cooking. And, I mean, to me, it's hilarious. You make eggnog from scratch, it's basically like a cake.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  It's eggs.

• 1:47Dan Pashman?

  Right, it's a dozen eggs, a pound of sugar, and a whole bunch of cream. But then, instead of flour, you use liquor.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're preserving egg, like cake batter.

• 1:57Dan Pashman?

  Right, it's basically preserved cake batter that you can drink.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Well, eggnog is boozy.

• 2:02Dan Pashman?

  Oh, it's very strong. Yeah, this stuff will knock you on your butt.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  I can have one eggnog, and I probably won't even finish it, because it is a little bit too much of everything for me.

• 2:13Dan Pashman?

  This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. I hope you ate all the turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes, or whatever it is that you look forward to eating on Thanksgiving. My Thanksgiving was very delicious. Thank you for asking. Now, as we turn towards December, a couple of quick notes. Remember that my cookbook, Anything's Possible, which was just named one of Wired's Best Cookbooks of 2024, is a great holiday gift, as are all my pastas sold by Sfolini, and they're available as a gift set. Buy them together, buy them separately, get them at sfolini.com. Get Anything's Possible wherever books are sold. And we are getting ready for our year-end episode, which means I need your New Year's food resolutions.

• 2:56Dan Pashman?

  What food do you resolve to eat more of in the new year and why? Send me a voice memo with your name, first name's fine, your location, and then tell me what food you're resolving to eat more of in the new year and why. Send me that voice memo to [email protected], and you can hear yourself in our big year-end spectacular. Now, on to the show, and speaking of the holidays, the holidays are a time when, yeah, we're thinking a lot about food, right? But it's also a time when many of us may have a few extra drinks, and others may be hanging out with people who are having a few extra drinks. That's why this week, I'm talking with LP O'Brien. She's a mixologist in Washington, DC. She's run drink programs in several top bars and restaurants, and she had a stint on a Netflix mixology competition show. Now, she's mostly working as a consultant,

• 3:40Dan Pashman?

  and I toward opening her own bar in DC next year. But LP isn't your typical drink maker. After years spent concocting cocktails in restaurants and bars, she decided to go sober. And later on, she'll tell us how this change actually made her a better mixologist.

• 3:59Dan Pashman?

  LP grew up in the Bronx and didn't drink in high school. She was the opposite of a rebellious teen, the fourth of eight kids who felt like she had to set an example for her younger siblings. Even once she moved to DC for college to study nursing, she still didn't drink. But she had a friend who worked at an upscale bar in DC called The Passenger, and she found it was a great place to hole up and focus on schoolwork.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  I would go in the back. They had, next door had these amazing chicken sandwiches and Mexican Coca-Cola.

• 4:24Dan Pashman?

  LP would sit in the back of the bar for hours, and she was struck by how the bartenders treated her.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  They'd take such great care of me. You know, they'd check in, they'd pour me water, you know, things. They'd make me feel good. Hospitality, right? So then I started paying attention to what the bartenders were doing. And there was this like dance they did behind the bar when they spoke to guests about the same thing, two guests sitting right next to each other could order the same thing and they would be given two completely different amazing experiences. And for me watching that, I was like, whoa, that's like magical, you know?

• 4:58Dan Pashman?

  Like, so break that down for me, like, what would be the drink and what would be the two different experiences?

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Let's say it's a classic old fashioned and you're regular and you come to the bar and it's like, hey, Joe, you wanna your old fashioned today? Well, let's try, you know, making it with miso and black walnut. And Joe's like, oh, my God, yeah, that sounds amazing, right? And so there's a, you know, another person sitting next to Joe and they're like, oh, what's an old fashioned? And now I'm hearing them spiel what an old fashioned is, asking what this individual is used to and accustomed to drinking, and then offering them an old fashioned, but a completely different one. And I'm like, how do they do? I just thought it was so cool that they were able to do that because it wasn't scripted, it was very natural, right?

• 5:44Dan Pashman?

  Right, there's an improvisational element.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you made two people feel very comfortable, very excited to experience basically the same thing, but catered to what they like, right? And I was like, I want to do that. That sounds so much, much, much more fun than what I'm doing every day, you know?

• 6:00Dan Pashman?

  And keep in mind, at this point, LP was still finishing her nursing degree, but it wouldn't hurt to get a side gig bartending at the Passenger or one of its sister restaurants, right? She asked the owner, Derek Brown, for a job.

• 6:12Dan Pashman?

  Now, at a fancy cocktail bar like this, you don't jump into bartending with no experience. You gotta work your way up. LP became a server and then a barback, basically a bartender's assistant. She had a lot to learn.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  I had to learn about how whiskey is made and understand mash bills and understand grains that are associated with whiskey and what regions with different types of whiskey are made in and the difference between this filtration process and that one.

• 6:38Dan Pashman?

  In the middle of all this training, LP finished up her nursing degree. She got a nursing job on top of the bar gig. After a year and a half of this double life as a nurse and a barback, something unexpected happened.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  We went to a Guar concert with all my coworkers, which is so random. Guar is like a heavy metal band from Richmond, Virginia, but they wear these like really awesome, rather dope, gory costumes, like monster costumes, right?

• 7:06Speaker 01

  So I'm this like 21 year old little black girl from the Bronx at this Guar concert. And they go into the mosh pit and I'm like, I'm good. I'm gonna stay back here. And then one of them comes out and their arm is completely like broken.

• 7:20Dan Pashman?

  Oh, God.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  It's bad. And I just remember Derek turning to me.

• 7:26Dan Pashman?

  That's Derek Brown, the owner of the bar.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  He goes, "You're bartending on Friday."

• 7:33Speaker 01

  I was like, "What are you talking about, sir?"

• 7:39Dan Pashman?

  Another good reason to avoid mosh pits.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, seriously.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  So Derek sits at Service Bar with me all Friday shift and I bartend and I was terrified. And I had studied up until that point, knowing classic cocktails and understanding the menu cocktails. But then I was getting requests for things like, "I need a 50/50 wet martini, da-da-da." And I was like, "I don't know how to make that. Like, what does that even mean?" You know?

• 8:06Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  And Derek's like, "Okay, let me walk you through it." And he would walk me through it. But I think for me in that moment, this owner, who probably has many other things to do, invested time in me and sat there the entire shift and made sure that I was able to do what I was supposed to do. And I knew from that moment on that I was gonna do nothing else. Like, that was, I was like, "All right, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life."

• 8:34Dan Pashman?

  That one shift made LP quit her nursing job. She went all in on bartending. But at first, her career change was a bit of a secret. Her parents still thought she was working as a nurse.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  My mom kept calling, "How's work?" And I was like, "Work is great." I mean, I wasn't gonna lie to my mom, but I wasn't gonna tell her that I wasn't a nurse anymore, right? But I was like, "Okay, so how do I break the news to my parents that I quit my nursing job after all the sacrifices they made?" Because the exposure we had of bartending in the Bronx was Applebee's. It was very different. And so I invited them to DC. I'm like, "I would love for you guys to come to DC and visit and we can go to dinner."

• 9:11Dan Pashman?

  At this point, LP was mostly bartending at another of Derek's restaurants called Eat the Rich. So she told her parents to meet her there for dinner. Except when they got there, LP was behind the bar.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  They're like, "Why are you behind the bar?" And I was like, "Oh, I work here." My mom was like, "What? What do you mean you work here?" And I was like, "Yeah, I'm a bartender."

• 9:33Speaker 01

  And my dad was like, oh, boy. And you could see his face like he understood what was happening. My mom was like not getting it. So at the end of the meal, I come out and my shift's over. And I was like, yeah, so I left my nursing job. I'm pursuing this as a career. And she was so mad. My mom did not talk to me for months.

• 9:53Dan Pashman?

  What happened that made her come around?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  My dad made me apologize. I was like, what am I apologizing for? And I think what I didn't realize is that my mom also comes from a very different time. She was born like while the Jim Crow laws were still in act. So for her, it's security. For her, it's stability. For her, it's being protected.

• 10:20Dan Pashman?

  LP's mom accepted her apology. So with her parents' blessing, LP got deeper and deeper into the world of mixology. She was learning so much, getting certified and trained in all kinds of different things related to the craft, like a sommelier certification and a Cicerone certification. Eventually, she worked her way up to running the entire beverage program at the three sister restaurants where she first studied for her nursing degree. Because these restaurants were already pretty well known, she then started getting invitations to speak on panels and at conferences around the world. She'd send those flyers to her parents just to make sure they understood the success. And they were, she says, very proud of her. Then in 2022, LP was approached by Netflix. They were developing a new reality competition show for mixologists called Drink Masters, and they wanted her to be a contestant.

• 11:04Dan Pashman?

  LP said yes, and she did extremely well, making it to the finale. In the last episode, the challenge was to make three drinks that are connected to each other and to the mixologist's personal story.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  I really wanted to lean into the contributions that African Americans had on, honestly, this cocktails and spirits, while connecting each of my drinks with an element of tea.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Because tea is such a huge part of African American culture. And so I had kind of a strategy from the beginning through the end. I didn't want to show them too much of what I was able and capable of doing. Because I felt that if I gave them all the bells and whistles and there was nowhere to grow.

• 11:45Dan Pashman?

  Oh, you were holding back on purpose.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  I was holding back.

• 11:48Dan Pashman?

  Wow, that is, that's savvy.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  I was holding back.

• 11:51Dan Pashman?

  But also risky, because what if you get eliminated and you're like, ah, I shouldn't have held back.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  I know.

• 11:55Dan Pashman?

  One of the skills LP was holding back, she'd been practicing all kinds of different techniques with the cooks at her most recent restaurant. She decided that in the finale, she would do more than make drinks. She would add food pairings, even though it wasn't required. A bold move, considering she had five hours to come up with and make everything. And she went hard on those food pairings.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  One of the things I did in the finale was make a baked Alaska, which is crazy. Because who does that? Who does that?

• 12:21Dan Pashman?

  LP paired the baked Alaska with a cocktail that had date infused cognac, milk punch, and Earl Grey dry ice.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Take a bite of the dessert and then a sip of the cocktail. Any traditional black family always has tea in their home. When I was a kid, that's all my mom drank. She really loves any tea.

• 12:38Dan Pashman?

  She also made a cocktail with gin and green tea, paired with an edible cherry mint sphere. And a cocktail made with cheese infused rye. Yes, I said cheese infused rye and black tea, but she paired with mac and cheese.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  I cannot believe that you made a baked Alaska and a mac and cheese today.

• 12:56Dan Pashman?

  The judges were floored.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  I think it's going to be a lot of people, especially young black women that go like, never thought about doing something like this.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  I hope so.

• 13:06Speaker 03

  And, uh, and.

• 13:07Dan Pashman?

  At the end of the episode, they announced the winner.

• 13:10Speaker 03

  The first ultimate drink master is. LP.

• 13:19Speaker 03

  Congratulations, LP.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 13:22Speaker 03

  You are the ultimate drink master.

• 13:25Dan Pashman?

  Winning Drink Masters changed LP's career and her personal life.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  It definitely amplified my platform, and I won't beat around the bush about it. It was hard. It was hard. There's a lot of pressure that comes with, well, when are you opening a bar? Or, you know, like, and bar is not necessarily the ultimate success. Or like, that's not necessarily like the end all be all for a successful, you know, beverage entrepreneur.

• 13:49Dan Pashman?

  Right. There's also just like, you win something like that, and there's an expectation, like, there's a path that people expect that you're going to follow.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 13:57Dan Pashman?

  And if you, if that's not what you want, then people almost kind of like, it doesn't compute.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think I got in my head a little bit because I was like, well, I have to do this now. Like, I'm racing against the clock.

• 14:12Dan Pashman?

  But in the end, LP decided to forget about the clock. She went in a very different direction. Instead of taking a bigger role working in bars and restaurants, she stepped back. She wanted to consult for a range of places, helping them set up their bar programs without being too involved with one. And she also made another big change.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  I made a decision to get married and have a family, you know, focus on that.

• 14:34Dan Pashman?

  That decision to get married and have a baby is big for anyone, but especially for someone whose career is in booze. Because when LP got pregnant, she had to stop drinking. And she found it was surprisingly easy, especially after the switch to consulting.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Prior to getting pregnant, I really wasn't imbibing nearly as much. I think when you're working in a bar environment and, you know, your shift is over and you're all going out as a team and you're taking like a shot, a lot of that just becomes habitual. And because I hadn't been working in a bar, it wasn't this stress coping mechanism that I had integrated into my day to day either. I certainly can say it used to be.

• 15:09Dan Pashman?

  LP says she never had any kind of drinking problem. It's just that being sober felt better.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  There was so much more mental clarity. I was such a better taster after having the baby, just made the decision to kind of continue on the path of sobriety.

• 15:23Dan Pashman?

  That's right. The award-winning mixologist stopped drinking for good. And with that decision, she found herself in the middle of one of the beverage industry's biggest trends. More on that coming up. Stick around.

• 15:39Speaker 04

  Ooh, advertisements. Yummy.

• 15:44Dan Pashman?

  When you're cooking, ingredients matter, right? You use higher quality ingredients, you usually get better results. And if you're listening to this show, you're probably the kind of person who puts some thought and effort into your ingredients. But ingredients don't just matter with food, they also matter with laundry detergent. Of course, the cleaning job needs to get done, the odors and stains have to be tackled, and I want to feel good about the detergent and the ingredients in it. Because remember, whatever's in your laundry detergent is essentially in your clothes, and then you're putting those clothes on, you want good stuff in there. And All Free Clear uses only essential ingredients. It's 100% free from dyes, perfumes, parabens, and irritating residues. Check out the label and see for yourself, it lists all the ingredients and what they do. We've been using it in my house, we're very happy with it, and let me tell you, family of four, two teenagers, we do a lot of laundry.

• 16:29Dan Pashman?

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• 17:13Dan Pashman?

  I grew up on Lando Lakes cheese. I still remember going to the supermarket deli counter with my mom and her ordering Lando Lakes American cheese. And now, Lando Lakes cheese and butter are a huge part of my home. There are so many easy weeknight recipes using Lando Lakes cheese and butter that bring delicious restaurant taste right to your table. From chicken parm to weeknight shrimp pad thai, Lando Lakes has plenty of quick dishes that'll have the whole dinner table talking. Visit landolakes.com/reцепes/collection for easy weeknight dinners.

• 17:42Dan Pashman?

  For a long time, I did not understand the point of vests. Like, why not just have a jacket? That covers your arms, too. But something clicked for me. I think I got gifted a vest and now I am obsessed with vests. And it just adds that little bit of toastiness. And I got this new Quince Packable Puffer Vest. I love that you can just squish it up and shove it in the bottom of your bag. That way you have it with you all day. If it gets a little chilly, break out the vest. I also got a Quince Down Quilted Vest. It is so soft and cozy. They make them for men and women. And as with everything you get at Quince, they focus on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. These are all timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays.

• 18:26Dan Pashman?

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• 18:48Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. On our episode two weeks ago, I talked with my friend and former colleague Abigail Keel. Abigail is super into food. She loves to cook, loves to go out to eat. But one day, a couple of years ago, something very unexpected happened. She was at home, just standing in her kitchen.

• 19:05Speaker 05

  All of a sudden, I just got this kind of weird headache and felt super dizzy.

• 19:12Speaker 05

  And needed to close my eyes, like, couldn't have them open, otherwise I felt like everything was spinning.

• 19:22Dan Pashman?

  This feeling Abigail was experiencing, it's called vertigo. And it can be very severe. People get so dizzy, they fall and get hurt. The nausea alone can be debilitating. It started happening to her regularly. She didn't know what was causing it. Looking for answers, she was confronted by a startling possibility. Maybe it was coming from inside the kitchen. We follow Abigail as she attempts to unravel this medical mystery and struggles to deal with the emotional impact of having to make a big change in how she eats. That episode's up now. Get it wherever you got this one. Now, back to LP O'Brien. LP decided to stop drinking nearly two years ago. And get this.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  I've found that I've become a way better mixologist and bartender and not imbibing.

• 20:03Dan Pashman?

  So how is that possible? I mean, obviously tasting is a big part of her job. But LP points out that you can taste without actually drinking.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  For professional whiskey or spirits and wine judges, they swirl it in their mouth and then it spell. For obvious reasons, one, they'd be really drunk if they did swallow all of that, right? But two, it does fatigue your palate after a while.

• 20:26Dan Pashman?

  Expel is the nicer, more polite version of saying spit it out.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Spit it out sounds so gross.

• 20:33Dan Pashman?

  Right, right, right, right. So make sure, make sure everyone's keeping up. So what's the technique for swirling without swallowing the drink?

• 20:41Speaker 01

  You definitely have to make sure that it's touching every part of your, the inside of your mouth. Right? So what we usually advise is you taste with your nose as well. And so typically, we would say you want to purse your lips and then inhale while the drink is in the glass.

• 20:57Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  Like tip it to the side. And then what that does is allows your body to be introduced to this like initial layer of senses. But think about it, if you were drinking a mojito and before you take a sip of your mojito, that mint spring is right in your face. It's kind of the same thing.

• 21:15Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  So at that point, then you would place the spirit in your mouth. You'd swirl it on your mouth. It spell and then you'd put it in your mouth again, at which point that second introduction to your palate would really be where you're closing your eyes, focusing on the flavor profiles that you taste. And something like whiskey, it might be, I taste, you know, caramel, I taste marshmallow, I taste chocolate or cacao. And then you might describe it with elements such as. It is full bodied. So a full body spirit would be something that feels a bit oily on the palate. And texture is a huge part of drinking.

• 21:57Dan Pashman?

  Now, we should say, traditionally, being sober has meant complete abstinence from alcohol, including tasting without swallowing. But for LP, who doesn't feel she's had an issue with drinking, tasting and spitting works for her. And her sobriety has led her down a new path in mixology: non-alcoholic beverages. As a consultant, she's often working with restaurants to develop NA options for their menus. I was curious to know a little more about how LP thinks about creating these drinks. But first, I wanted to know what she thinks of the word "mocktail."

• 22:25Speaker 01

  So I think that the beverage industry fought the word "mocktail" for so long. Here's the thing, at the end of the day, the consumer's gonna call it whatever they call it. So if "mocktail" is how they identify with it, don't fight it, but correct them. So this is what I tend to do and say. I think a mocktail is a Shirley Temple. It's a sweet sugary drink that I would be okay giving to a child to drink. But a non-alcoholic beverage, or a boozeless beverage, is, it's an adult drink. It's something I want, you know? Has complexity, has texture, has sophistication associated with it, and takes the same thought process as any other drink with alcohol would take.

• 23:01Dan Pashman?

  When you try to develop a drink like that, to me, the first challenge is gonna be like sweetness.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:06Dan Pashman?

  Because, you know, so many cocktails are basically like, okay, you have this strong-flavored spirit, you're gonna add some kind of other things that are going to balance the intensity of the spirit. Once you take the spirit out, I would always worry that it's gonna be too sweet. So how do you work, how do you deal with that?

• 23:24Speaker 01

  So Derek Brown wrote a book called Spirit Sugar Bitter Waters. That's the definition of a cocktail.

• 23:30Dan Pashman?

  That's something that drinks version of salt, fat, acid, heat.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, seriously. And the idea behind that is, it defines a cocktail. So that's the definition of an old-fashioned. But if you add citrus, that's now a definition of a sour. You add egg white with soda water, that's the definition of a fizz, right? So you kind of build off of that. The reason I bring that up is because when we're making beverages, the way that we think of them when they're non-alcoholic is quite different. We're now compensating for texture, a lack of density. We need additional complexity and flavor. So how do we do that? And we do it a couple of different ways. So if I'm making, let's say, a Collins, by definition, it's gin, lemonade, soda water. Very simple.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  But this Collins has no alcohol in it. What are some things I can do to compensate for that lack of texture? Well, if I have some sort of carbonation incorporated in the drink, I've already kind of helped my case. But gin and the addition of gin has botanicals, which adds complexity. So maybe I add a tea of some sort or a tea syrup of some sort to make up for that lack of complexity. Now, depending on how long I steep my tea, I might incorporate tannins, which are most commonly associated with wine. When you take a sip of wine, for instance, or even tea that's been steeped too long, when you have that sensation on your tongue that makes your lips kind of pucker, it like dries out your palate.

• 24:58Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, it's a little bitter.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Those are tannins. And so sometimes you do want that in a drink. Because it does add complexity. It does add texture, right? But not too much. So it's a little bit of a balance.

• 25:11Dan Pashman?

  I would think that if you're saying, okay, I'm going to make a non-alcoholic version of a classic cocktail, then anyone who drinks that who has had the version with alcohol is always going to be comparing it to.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  100%.

• 25:23Dan Pashman?

  Right. So like, is it almost easier to just throw out the comparison and say, I'm going to create this non-alcoholic beverage from scratch so that you don't have anything to compare it to?

• 25:33Speaker 01

  I think we need a baseline from a creative process standpoint in the same way we make cocktails. Classics are tried and true. They are proportions and a combination of flavors that will work every single time. Now, as you become more knowledgeable in the history of different spirits and how they're made, what is incorporated in them from an ingredient standpoint, how they're distilled, you start to understand how that does impact flavor and texture, right? ABV, you know, alcohol by volume, how that plays a factor in how you dilute your drink or what types of drinks that you put it in.

• 26:08Dan Pashman?

  So one approach for non-alcoholic cocktails, take inspiration from a classic mixed drink. But LP says there are also non-alcoholic classics that she can pull inspiration from. Like when she was growing up in the Bronx, she was exposed to drinks from a wide range of cultures.

• 26:21Speaker 06

  That could be anything like aguama, when I was at a girlfriend's house, or something like a non-alcoholic Italian spritz, which was very typical for my friend whose family was from Sicily. Those cultural drinks, those are also tried and true.

• 26:38Dan Pashman?

  LP's decision to go sober might seem unusual, given her line of work. But she's definitely not the only one starting to think more about non-alcoholic beverage options. You probably see NA drinks popping up everywhere, from your craft cocktail bar to the beer aisle at your local grocery store. Kaitlin Lovegrove has noticed it too. She's a senior consultant for the company Numerator, which provides consumer research and insights. Basically, they collect and analyze data from people's receipts and frequent shopper cards. And earlier this year, Kaitlin wrote a whole report on the non-alcoholic beverage industry in the US. My first question for her, how do you even define a non-alcoholic beverage?

• 27:11Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, even the definition's a little bit tricky, right? Because when you're not drinking alcohol, are you drinking a substitute? Are you drinking something like a fruit juice instead? And where do you draw that line?

• 27:22Dan Pashman?

  Kaitlin says for their study, they looked at non-alcoholic beer, non-alcoholic wine, and, as LP calls them, boozeless beverages, or mocktails. Kaitlin's study did not include soda, seltzer, juice, energy drinks, kombucha, none of that. I asked her to give me the big picture of what's happening in the NA space right now.

• 27:39Speaker 06

  We're seeing about, over the last four years, what we're calling a 20% compound annual growth rate, which means that 20% year-over-year, we're seeing that kind of growth. When we looked at the analysis, it was the second fastest-growing category in all of beverage alcohol. Only ready-to-drink cocktails were growing faster. Now, I'll caveat that by saying that it's still super tiny. So when I'm talking about super-fast growth, if you start with a really small number, then it's going to get really impressive percentages. So when we're looking at share of alcohol, I just pulled it. And about four years ago, it was at 0.4% and now it's at 0.6%.

• 28:15Dan Pashman?

  In other words, sales of NA drinks are growing quickly, but it's still less than 1% of alcoholic drinks. Caitlin says there are a few reasons for the growth, but there's one main driver among people they looked at.

• 28:25Speaker 06

  When we surveyed them, they said health was one of the number one reasons why they're drinking less. And so as they're shifting their behaviors, they're choosing maybe a non-alcoholic alternative to some of the times when they would otherwise drink. But they're not necessarily stopping from purchasing alcohol overall. People who are buying non-alcoholic beverages aren't necessarily buying them because they've stopped drinking. They're buying them sort of in addition to their alcoholic beverages. For example, the people who are buying non-alcoholic beverages were about 40% more likely to be drinking two or more times a week than people buying any alcoholic beverage. So they were already kind of heavy drinkers. And they're just saying, okay, you know what? I still want to keep my habits, but maybe I'm just substituting non-out for some of those occasions.

• 29:10Speaker 06

  97% of non-alcoholic buyers were also buying alcohol. So almost all of them.

• 29:16Dan Pashman?

  Now, this data is just from retail stores. So it's not telling us how people are drinking in restaurants and bars. But still, 97% is a pretty big number. One other shift Caitlin's noticed in the market is less quantifiable, and that's the perception of non-alcoholic beers, wines and spirits.

• 29:31Speaker 06

  If you think 10 years ago, you think of the stigma that came along with something like an O'Doul's and buying it at a bar kind of signified, oh, that person has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. That's why they're buying an O'Doul's. Now, first of all, there's more options, which makes it delicious. But you can also buy or drink one of these non-al options and not have that stigma associated with it. So it's, it's just a different category than it used to be.

• 29:58Dan Pashman?

  Caitlin credits a lot of this shift in perception to Athletic Brewing, which is one of the biggest companies that exclusively makes non-alcoholic beers.

• 30:05Speaker 06

  They've positioned themselves to say, we're not for people who have an issue with alcohol. We're for people who like to drink beer while they're on the ski lift, but want to keep skiing moguls. And so they're going to drink a non-alcoholic beer so they can have that athletic capability with them. And that kind of shifted the conversation. And you see it bleed into some of the other brands.

• 30:27Dan Pashman?

  Am I right that now White Claw is doing a non-alcoholic?

• 30:33Dan Pashman?

  Hard seltzer, like it's a hard seltzer that's not hard?

• 30:35Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 30:36Dan Pashman?

  How is that different from seltzer?

• 30:38Speaker 06

  There's actually quite a few, I'd say, brands that are positioning themselves as sort of non-alcoholic alternatives for sort of socializing occasions, where you maybe don't want to showcase that you're not drinking, but maybe you want to sort of, maybe you're the designated driver, or maybe you just want to, you know, maintain a level so that you have a little bit more awareness. So I think that's where that White Claw Zero comes into play. I think that's where they were trying to position themselves. You know, you order a seltzer at a bar, you get it in like the different cup with the signifier that it's not alcohol. It's very clear that you are not drinking to anyone watching. Whereas you order like a White Claw Zero, it's in a similar can, it still kind of looks cool to what we were talking about before. It's kind of a similar play to Liquid Death, if you're familiar.

• 31:23Dan Pashman?

  Right, which is just water, but it's in a can that looks like a can of beer, and it's like a skull and crossbones on it.

• 31:30Speaker 06

  Right. It's more about the vibe, right?

• 31:31Dan Pashman?

  Packaging matters. Packaging matters.

• 31:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, and it's marketing, and it's good marketing.

• 31:40Dan Pashman?

  So non-alcoholic drinks are one of the fastest-growing sectors in the beverage industry, but they still are, right now, very small in relation to everything else that's out there. How big do you think they can get?

• 31:53Speaker 06

  I mean, as much as we talk about, people are drinking less alcohol, and people are, you know, more aware of health issues with drinking alcohol, it's a huge, you know, constant juggernaut of a category. And I think any declines we're going to see in that are going to be slow in coming.

• 32:14Dan Pashman?

  As for L.P. O'Brien, last year she became a co-owner of Sipony, a company that makes ready-to-drink, non-alcoholic cocktails in cans. One of them is marketed as a play on a paloma, another is a play on a mule, et cetera. L.P. says that Sipony drinks work as standalone or as mixers, so you can keep them non-alc by just adding a garnish like mint or lime juice, or maybe a rim of honey and cinnamon sugar, or you can mix in alcohol.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  I think the coolest thing about this is that you can kind of experiment with flavor profiles. It's an opportunity to get to know those spirits that you have at home a little bit better, to see what works and what doesn't work. You don't even need to put a full ounce and a half. If you want a little low IBV beverage, 0.75 ounces an ounce is perfectly fine.

• 32:55Dan Pashman?

  I want more restaurants to have low alcohol cocktails.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree.

• 32:59Dan Pashman?

  Especially if I go out to dinner, I want to be hungry to enjoy the food. So I sit down at the table, my stomach's empty, and the server comes along and says, "Can I get you started on a cocktail?" And I like a cocktail, but it could be a little while before I start eating food. And if I start drinking that cocktail, I'm going to be drunker than I want to be very quickly. I often wish there was a low alcohol cocktail. Or like in Europe, they often will give you like a 0.3 liter beer.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:26Dan Pashman?

  I don't want to be all filled up on beer. I want to save some space for the food, but I'm in the mood for a beer. So I wish that I could get like a small beer or a cocktail that's like half strength.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  I agree. I think that's important. I think we're seeing a lot more of that. I mean, I always said if I open a bar, I'm going to have half pours of beer and wine. We'll do mini martinis. I think it's when we're talking about versatility in a menu, it's versatility in color and in glassware and in style of spirit, but it's also in serving options and low IBV options as well.

• 33:56Dan Pashman?

  As we enter the holiday season, LP is looking forward to a few classic seasonal beverages, because as she says, being sober doesn't mean giving up on time honored drinks. She now makes NA versions of two of her favorites.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  The two drinks I come to mind for the holidays, one, Cokie though for sure, which is basically the better version of eggnog. If you've never had it. And then some sort of mulled wine. And for those who don't know what mulled wine is, it's essentially wine that is warm and served with a variety of different spices, citrus, a little bit of spiced honey. It's delicious.

• 34:32Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, my wife's family is Eastern European and they do spiced wine there too. Like, do you prefer red or white spiced wine?

• 34:39Speaker 01

  You know, I've actually recently got on the bandwagon for the spiced white wine. It just depends on the mood, I guess, but they're both delicious.

• 34:49Dan Pashman?

  What is this season like for a person who doesn't drink alcohol?

• 34:54Speaker 01

  It's great. I definitely stay out of the family arguments, so that's awesome.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  No, it's great. I think I've gotten a lot more accustomed to making NA options, especially because my younger sisters, the four of them, are of drinking age, but they usually don't drink. And so they always have a really grand time when I can bring like a bottle of NA wine, or they're just so intrigued by the options. And so one of the things I look forward to quite often is going home to my parents' house, playing Scrabble. My parents always had a Scrabble board in the house. And this past year, we bought my dad like the master, you know, the Scrabble boards are expensive now. It's like $200 master edition, you know? So we bought this board for him. And last year, I bought, you know, some prosecco for my dad, but I bought NA wine for me and my sisters. And they were like, we can't even

• 35:43Speaker 01

  tell the difference. So it's usually NA wine, some NA beer for me. And then I will bring some options with alcohol for the rest of the family.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  For me, it's just about that social element aspect, right? Like, it's kind of habitual. It's like, I just want something in my hand that tastes delicious, that I can enjoy with food, and to be around the laughs and the happy moments.

• 36:14Dan Pashman?

  That's LP O'Brien. She's a co-owner of Sippenny Spritz Co. She also runs a company in DC that does events called LP Drinks. You can follow her on Instagram at LP Drinks DC. You can also follow her nascent bar concept at Barlienzo. Also, get this, we're posting LP's recipe for non-alcoholic mulled wines. You can try making it at home for the holidays. Find that on my Instagram at The Sporkful, or on our website, sporkful.com. Remember to send me your New Year's food resolutions. Record a voice memo with your name, location, and tell me what food you resolved to eat more of in the new year and why. Send it to me at [email protected]. Next week on the show, I'm talking with cookbook authors Christina Cho and Brian Ford. If everything had gone as originally planned in their lives, Christina would be an architect

• 36:57Dan Pashman?

  and Brian would be an accountant. Instead, they're award-winning authors who've written some of the most exciting cookbooks of this year. That's next week. Why wait for that one? Check out last week's episode with comedian and co-host of the handsome podcast Fortune Feimster. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the Sirius XM app? Yes, the Sirius XM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the Sirius XM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. This episode was produced by me along with managing producer-

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Emma Morgenstern.

• 37:42Dan Pashman?

  And senior producer- Andres O'Hara. It was edited by-

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Nora Ritchie.

• 37:46Dan Pashman?

  Our engineer is- Jared O'Connell. And our intern is- Julia Leo. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producers are Nora Ritchie and Colin Anderson. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 37:58Speaker 07

  And I'm Scott Dieter from Cleveland, Ohio, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 38:13Speaker 04

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• 38:57Speaker 04

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• 39:24Speaker 06

  Grab a White Claw. Grab flavor for everyone in your group. Grab music, laughter, and moments you'll never forget. You'll never regret it. Oh, hey, man. Grab new friends, grab old friends, grab life. By the Claw. White Claw. Please drink responsibly. White Claw Seltzer Works, Chicago, Illinois.