Buyers of alcohol alternatives use them alongside alcohol more often than instead of it. Among buyers who have ever drunk alcohol, 49% drink alternatives in addition to alcohol, 41% instead of it, and 33% at times they would not have had alcohol anyway, according to our October survey of 1,003 alcohol-alternative buyers (fielded by Prodege Insights, Oct. 8–16, 2026; n=982 who have ever drunk alcohol).
What the buyer’s goal dictates
The largest group in the buyer survey, 46% of buyers, drinks alcohol with no goal to cut back. For them, the most common primary mode is in addition to alcohol, at 46%. Long-term reducers, 27% of buyers, reverse it: 49% use alternatives instead of alcohol most often. Buyers on a temporary break, 19%, sit between, with in addition at 42% and instead at 33%. We expect that group to grow.
The reasons split along the same line. Among buyers with no reduction goal, taste leads at 42%, and physical health ranks sixth (20%). Among long-term reducers, physical health leads (37%), and taste is third (28%). One group is choosing a drink. The other is choosing a substitute.
Three jobs, three competitors
Read this way, the category sells three products under one name, and each one competes with something different. An alternative drunk alongside alcohol competes with the next glass of wine or beer in the same evening. One drunk instead of alcohol competes with the decision to drink at all, and it has to carry the occasion on its own. One drunk when alcohol was never coming competes with water, soda, and whatever else is in the fridge.
The category’s language was built for the second job. Nearly all buyers (93%) drank alcohol in the past six months, and the most common job is the first. A brand positioned on substitution and health speaks to the 27% who are reducing, on health, a reason the 46% with no goal rank sixth.
Brands built for the first job
Founders have been describing the first job for years. “With Seedlip, we never targeted people who are sober,” Ben Branson told Dry Atlas in 2023. “The stats are overwhelmingly that moderation is what people are doing. And they are drinking alc and non-alc on the same occasion, in the same week.” Ghia founder Melanie Masarin told Dry Atlas in January that the brand is “reframing non-alcoholic drinking as something you add to your life, not something you endure for a month, at best, and abandon.”
Botivo, the U.K. aperitivo brand, built its rebrand on the same take. Its own research found that the people drawn to the brand were motivated by pleasure, not restraint, so it put flavor in front, took moderation out of the message, and changed its tagline from “Slow-Sipping Botanicals” to “Big-Sipping Botanical Aperitivo.” A brand built for the evening a drinker is already having reaches the larger group on taste, which reducers still rank in their top three.
The practical lesson is to know which job a brand’s own buyers hire it for before writing the message, the price, or the shelf placement around it. Asked which they do most often, 40% of buyers said alongside alcohol, 36% instead, and 24% when they wouldn’t have drunk anyway. Our State of Alcohol Alternatives report has the occasion data behind each of the three.
