on October 26, 2026
The open bar isn't going away. It's just not the whole story anymore.
New research on American drinking habits shows a real, sustained shift away from alcohol — not a “Dry January” blip, but a pattern that's holding through the rest of the year. For anyone organizing a company happy hour, it’s a real consideration.
Why are so many people cutting back on alcohol?
According to Circana's third annual consumer sentiment survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults aged 21 and up, nearly half — 49% — say they're trying to drink less in 2025, a 44% increase since 2023. That's not a fringe behavior anymore; it's approaching half the drinking-age population.
Separate research from Datassential, a food-and-beverage industry research firm, backs this up with harder numbers: the share of Americans who drink alcohol at least a few times a year has declined by 6%, and nearly half of drinkers (especially Gen Z and Millennials) say alcohol feels less appealing than it used to. More than two in five say they don't view alcohol as an important part of their life at all. Cost plays a real role too: over two-thirds of drinkers say alcohol has gotten noticeably more expensive, and more than a third of people drinking less in 2026 point to price specifically as a reason.
What are people drinking instead?
Not just water and soda, though those still lead on convenience. Datassential's research identifies a few clear frontrunners: low-alcohol cocktails carry 63% awareness and 51% real interest among consumers; functional sodas — the kind built around an actual benefit, not just flavor — sit even higher, at 66% awareness and 58% interest. Tea-based cocktails and mocktails are having their own moment too, with 58% of consumers now viewing tea itself as a healthy choice, not just a mixer.
What this means for the company happy hour
Here's the planning problem hiding inside all of this: a happy hour built entirely around alcohol is now built for less than half the room, at best — and increasingly, for a shrinking half. One approach some workplaces are already adopting, sometimes called "zebra striping," alternates alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks one-to-one at company events, so nobody has to choose between "drinking" and "having something to hold." It's a good instinct, even if it's still an emerging practice rather than a settled standard.
The harder version of this problem is logistics. Most offices solve it, if they solve it at all, with a separate mocktail table or a cooler of soda sitting apart from the real bar — which quietly signals exactly the two-tier experience the whole shift is trying to move past.
Where LAViT fits
The bigger pattern here isn't really about mocktails, or even about alcohol — it's about how fast beverage preferences shift once you look at them generation by generation. What Gen Z wants is already different from what Millennials want, and both are different from where this conversation was five years ago. A fixed lineup is built for a snapshot of preference that's already out of date by the time it's ordered. That's the real case for a variety-based system like LAViT: not that it solves one party, but that it's built for a landscape that keeps moving, at the office and everywhere else.
Sources: Circana, third annual consumer sentiment survey of 1,000+ U.S. adults aged 21+, reported November 2025. Datassential, "Non-Alcoholic Beverage Trends 2026," January 2026.