The wellness world has seen a rise of alcohol alternatives and plant-based medicines on the market.
In a panel on “California Sober” — the buzzword for those giving up alcohol while enjoying cannabis and other remedies — the founders behind some of the leading companies in the space discussed the current landscape with West Coast executive editor Booth Moore.
“We’re the first of our kind,” said Jen Batchelor, chief executive officer and founder of Kin Euphorics, who was inspired by the study of Ayurveda to create the drinks company, launched with Bella Hadid as partner and face.
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“I was trying to live my best life,” she went on. “Alcohol got in the way so often of that pursuit, my feel-good sensibility and my energy. That’s what Kin Euphorics is all about. It’s about returning well-being to the self.”
Introduced in 2017, Kin Euphorics products are made with adaptogenic herbs and roots, nootropics and botanicals to help alleviate stress, enhance brainpower and mood — while giving a buzz. Drinks like its “Actual Sunshine” (found at Erewhon and Target) have bovine collagen, vitamin D3, vitamin C, zinc, along with pineapple, cardamom, turmeric and ginger.
It rivals mocktails.
“I was feeling like I’m having something lesser than the real thing,” Batchelor said of mocktails, noting their pricey cost — as high as $16 in New York bars when the company launched.
Cann — which spikes seltzer with weed, as its website notes — is also positioned as an alcohol alternative. Launched in 2019, drinks are micro-dosed with THC and CBD, and contain no artificial sweeteners or preservatives.
“We take out the problematic ingredient, the alcohol, and swap in much less problematic ingredients like THC, but they still deliver on the buzz,” said CEO and cofounder Jake Bullock. “You get a buzz from our products, but you don’t get any of the negative effects of alcohol the next day.”
Cann’s top consumer is a heavy drinker, he said. “They over index two, three, five times the average. They find products like ours, and we bring them back to average.”
Because of that — and similar to Kin Euphorics in its positioning — where Cann is physically placed in retail stores is crucial.
“Being alongside alcohol, it’s really important because we’re trying to get people to drink less booze,” he said. “That decision needs to happen where they’re making the decision to purchase booze.”
Both Bullock and Batchelor noted a behavioral shift with Gen Z; they’re drinking less alcohol than previous generations.
“They’re [not] entirely sober, which is interesting. In some ways, this is the first generation which has expanded, safe access to things like cannabinoids and other functional ingredients,” said Bullock. “It’s not an entirely sober generation. But it’s an interesting one, and it’s one that alcohol [companies] should be afraid of.”
For Shizu Okusa, CEO and founder of Apothékary, while her company marries Eastern medicine with Western health care as “Mother Nature’s pharmacy,” part of the business intersects with alcohol culture. And one of Apothékary’s best performing marketing initiatives was its “sober-ish” campaign.
“Sober-ish was really the thing that resonated the most, because we’re still at the very early innings and adopting stage of becoming ‘sober sober,’” said Okusa. Launched in 2020, Apothékary sells tinctures and powders made with no sugars or additives using ingredients like “age-defying mushrooms, collagen-boosting berries” and herbs rooted in ancient medicines.
“Sober curiosity, sober-ish, leaning into that has really allowed us to handhold our customers through the pharmacy, because we use wine alternatives, but we also have to know hormonal health, melatonin alternative, stress alternatives,” she said. “We’re trying to get to that root cause of why people are even stressed to grab that alcohol. That’s really where we try to aim — not just treat the symptom, but get to the cause.”