Functional drinks: the new ‘mood making’ alcohol alternatives trending with health-conscious Gen Z – Bella Hadid’s Kin Euphorics, Three and Aplós beverages swap booze for hemp, mushrooms and botanicals
- Three Spirit was co-founded by Tatiana Mercer, Kin Euphorics was co-founded by model Bella Hadid – they compete in the growing alternative drinks sector with Trip and Aplós
- David Nutt, a professor at Imperial College, University of London, is behind Gabalabs’ Sentia – based on herbal extracts – and Alcarelle, a tasteless ingredient that gives mild, alcohol-like effects
“Cigarettes had their time and now fewer and fewer people smoke. And I think alcohol is going through the same process,” argues Tatiana Mercer. “There’s growing concern with alcohol’s impact on our performance, our health, our sleep. I think younger generations look up at older generations with hangovers and think ‘why do you do this to yourself?’”
Mercer isn’t a zealot – she still likes a G&T. And for much of her career she has reported on cocktail culture. But now she runs the company she co-founded called Three Spirit. It’s one of a new, rapidly expanding sector in the drinks industry: alcohol replacements. Unlike alcohol-free drinks – the same flavour as beers and wines but without the alcohol – these cut their own path on flavour but use a blend of various sometimes exotic ingredients: the likes of botanicals, mushrooms, cacao, broad-spectrum hemp and various berries, to also be what Three Spirit describes as “mood making”.
“I’m not sure anyone really wants an alcohol-free G&T, because we drink alcohol among other reasons to decompress, to lift our mood, sometimes to just feel like we’re not missing out,” says Mercer. “And I think it’s OK to be honest about that.”
Indeed, while the so-called “functional drinks” sector has, to date, explored the wellness space – offering all sorts of natural “magic potions” to, for example, aid recovery after workouts – now it’s moving into the social space: offering something akin to the effects of alcohol, but without the price to pay next morning. While this is leading to distribution problems – it’s not clear where these drinks fit in yet – it looks to be a growth market, suggests Mercer, with CBD drinks brands Trip and Aplós; and Kin Euphorics, co-founded by model Bella Hadid, all making moves.
“People are increasingly eager to go back to nature and revisit the way we think about functional botanicals, as well as their benefits. In some ways this is about revisiting ancient, natural remedies but doing it in a format that is socially acceptable and relevant to the way we live today,” argues Aplós’ co-founder, Emily Onkey, who calls what she makes a “proxy spirit”.
There are other approaches to developing such drinks too. David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College, University of London, also runs Gabalabs, named after gamma-aminobutyric acid (gaba), the building block of the brain’s primary inhibitory neurotransmitters. Much of Nutt’s work focuses on understanding how the brain’s inhibitory circuits work, and latterly how to toy with them to induce the same sense of calm and relaxation we get from booze. Indeed, it was Nutt who provided the first proof of alcohol’s stimulation of the gaba receptors.