Non-alcoholic drinks are the new normal.
The way I handle non-alcoholic drinks at corporate events has changed quite a lot over the past few years. Previously, it was more a case of making sure there was a non-alcoholic wine available if somebody asked for one. Now I assume it needs to be there. And ideally, there should be a few choices.
Nobody should have to explain themselves
There are so many reasons somebody might not be drinking that evening, and the last thing I want to do is point someone out and make them explain themselves. They might be pregnant. They might have stopped drinking completely. They might be driving. Or they might just fancy a non-alcoholic drink.
Swapping and pacing
I hosted an event recently where three or four people chose the non-alcoholic sparkling when they arrived, then went on to drink wine afterwards. They were pacing themselves.
Perhaps they’d just got off the train, it was hot, and they knew that first glass of sparkling wine would disappear very quickly. Plenty of people now seem to swap between alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks throughout an evening.
How I offer it
So I don’t make a big announcement about it. There’s sparkling. There’s non-alcoholic sparkling. We have non-alcoholic white and red available too. Choose what you fancy, it gets poured, and we move on.
And quite often, as soon as one person asks to try the non-alcoholic wine, everyone else at the table suddenly wants a taste too. There’s a lot of curiosity around good non-alcoholic drinks at the moment.
For a corporate event, I think they simply need to be part of what you offer everyone, without anyone having to ask for special treatment or explain why they want one.
