What does it mean to be “sober curious?”

The term was first introduced by Ruby Warrington, a British writer and the leader behind the movement, whose book “Sober Curious” was published in 2018.

Warrington was quoted in The Guardian saying: “Talking about sobriety as a trend is not OK. The point of sober curious is to differentiate between those of us who have the privilege to be sober curious and perhaps dabble [in alcohol] here and there, and those for whom drinking and alcohol is a mortal danger.”

The idea behind sober curiosity is to question every social situation and make conscious choices whether to consume alcohol or not, rather than go along with the “dominant drinking culture”.

It’s an idea that’s caught the public’s attention. In 2019, the phrase really took off on social media and, after a slump at the beginning of the pandemic, it’s beginning to pick up speed again.

What are we choosing instead of alcohol?

While mocktails have been around for a while – remember Shirley Temple? – these sugary drinks are no longer cutting it as today’s health-conscious and sober-curious consumers are seeking a healthier alternative to alcohol.

In fact, regular drinks like water and juice are holding their own. Using Brandwatch Consumer Research, we collected close to two million posts that mentioned “I drink” / “I’m drinking” / “I like to drink” and “my favorite beverage”.

We gathered data for the period January 1 – July 13 2021 and compared the findings to 2019 and 2020 to see how our choices may have changed over the last three years.

Here’s what we found.

Water and coffee have been ranked at the top of the list for three years in a row, and tea only briefly replaced alcohol in 2020. But in 2021, tea has maintained its an advantage over beer (that’s been ranked as #4 for two years straight).

White wine has been pushed down the list since 2021, not even making it to the top ten.

And while alcohol is still in the top ten beverages of choice, it now represents only 3/10 of the most-mentioned drinks (vs 4/10 in 2019).

Are people quitting drinking?

We also took a look at people talking about quitting drinking online, and those talking about planning to quit drinking.

Mention volumes are fairly low, but we were able to spot some trends.

As you would expect, one of the more recent spikes in conversations mentioning “I want to quit drinking” happened on July 5 – the day after the Independence Day celebrations all across the United States, on which many people wake up with sore heads.

And another spike was caused by this tweet:

While lots of people may want to quit drinking, those reporting that they’ve actually quit altogether seem to be fewer in number. That said, being “sober curious” isn’t necessarily about quitting outright.

Big alcohol companies appear to be aware of the “sober curious” trend and see it as an opportunity to invest in the non-alcoholic drinks category, expand their product offerings, and improve market share.

In fact, several of them already did, like Heineken launching Heineken Zero, Diageo acquiring a stake in Ritual Zero Proof and Seedlip, and Canadian non-alcoholic company Partake Brewing securing $4M in funding.

What should we cover next?

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Stay safe,

The Brandwatch React team