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On Sunset Boulevard, scattered among , and a slew of other -able boutiques and coffee shops is Soft Spirits, Los Angeles鈥檚 first nonalcoholic bottle shop.

You wouldn鈥檛 know it doesn鈥檛 sell alcohol by entering the store. Rows of whiskeys, gins and wines in apothecary-like glass bottles line the walls. If you didn鈥檛 bother to peer at the labels, which often say 鈥渮ero-proof鈥� or 鈥渘on-alcoholic鈥� in small font, none of these bottles would seem out of place at a liquor store.

The store is tapping into a new kind of 21-and-up consumer: often young, these 鈥渟ober curious鈥� or 鈥渕indful drinking鈥� customers are experimenting less with the hard stuff.

Venture firms have taken notice: In 2022, budding nonalcoholic beverage startups received a record of over $414 million in venture funding as a crowd of millennials and Gen-Z folks .

Celebrities , Blake Lively and Bella Hadid have all founded companies that create low-sugar, botanical-packed nonalcoholic aperitifs.

鈥淲e get a lot of people asking, ‘Who is this for?’鈥� said Jillian Barkley, founder of Soft Spirits. 鈥淭hat’s a really interesting question because our demographic so far is a little bit undefinable.鈥�

Pandemic-era buzz around nonalcoholic booze

There was once a time when rejecting a glass of wine or nursing a cup of water came with certain assumptions: Either you were pregnant, recovering from addiction or just聽 staunchly sober. Options for those nonimbibing adults ranged from water to sugar-packed mocktails.

That began to change during the pandemic. As bars and clubs shuttered, online purchases .

From nonalcoholic to cannabis infused

After years of drinking, friends Jake Bullock and Luke Anderson decided they were tired of alcohol 鈥� the morning hangovers, the regret and the overall toll on their livers were enough.

鈥淲hat was hard was that so much of our social world was built around alcohol,鈥� Bullock said. 鈥淪o it often meant that the choice was either stay and be sober or go out and drink too much and feel terrible the next day.鈥�

The pair founded in 2018, promising a low-dose cannabis-infused drink that could be bought in a six-pack and have the same bubbly, light taste as a canned cocktail (but without the booze). At the time, THC beverages existed in 10-milligram cans that, Bullock said, 鈥渋s too much for a regular person having a social experience.鈥�

The startup鈥檚 two-milligram THC drinks rolled out in California, and slowly moved into other states that allowed the sale of cannabis drinks. The company raised $32 million in funding over the course of two rounds, but still had to work around different state laws carefully as it created distribution strategies. Cann also couldn鈥檛 rely on social media marketing due to the nature of the product.

Then, something changed. During the pandemic, online sales for Cann drinks picked up. The company tripled the size of its business, deliveries shot up to 10x more than pre-pandemic numbers, and, in 2022, it sold its 10 millionth can.

鈥淭hat’s a very small scale compared to alcohol,鈥� Bullock said. 鈥淏ut also alcohol has hundreds of thousands of places where it can sell, and we have a few thousand.鈥�

鈥業t鈥檚 its own thing.鈥�

Cann鈥檚 not the only startup to see a shift. , perhaps the most well-known nonalcoholic craft beer startup in the U.S., saw massive adoption during the pandemic that stuck even after social distancing norms ended.

鈥淪ome of our best weeks of the year are around Memorial Day, July 4th holiday, Labor Day,鈥� said Chris Furnari, communications lead at Athletic Brewing. 鈥淪o we follow beer trends generally. Just because we’re nonalcoholic, it doesn’t really matter.鈥�

Indeed, Athletic Brewing says 80% of its customers aren鈥檛 sober, something data follows: Around 78% of soft spirit consumers .

But companies like Athletic Brewing and Cann aren鈥檛 trying to replace alcohol 鈥� instead, they鈥檙e trying to integrate with other beverages you might see at a cookout or dinner party, like soda and tea.

Companies are making whiskeys that have the alcohol by volume level of a kombucha. Others are making distilled botanical spirits out of herbs and plants that taste nothing like gin or other traditional liquors. As Soft Spirits鈥� Barkley said, 鈥渢hey鈥檙e their own thing.鈥�

鈥淭hat’s the area that I find exciting because I used to drink alcohol and I know what gin tastes like, I know what whiskey tastes like,鈥� Barkley said. 鈥淪o this gives you a new avenue to explore [for] a different, unique experience.鈥�

Illustration: Dom Guzman