One non-alcoholic pour at a time…

There was a time – not so long ago – when opting out of alcohol in the UAE meant settling for something saccharine and second-rate. “I could only find low-quality malt beverages and sweet sparkling juices in champagne-style bottles,” recalls Erika Blazeviciute-Doyle, who moved to the UAE in 2019 and was struck by the absence of premium alternatives “like a tonne of bricks.”

That gap, it turns out, was less a niche and more a blind spot. Today, the zero-proof category is not only viable, it’s booming.

Erika’s own journey began earlier, in the UK, where she gave up alcohol in 2015.

“I’ve always been a very sociable person who enjoys hosting and entertaining,” she says. “I was looking for sophisticated, premium non-alcoholic options so I didn’t feel left out.” At the time, those options were few and far between. But the seed was planted.

By 2020, in the midst of a pandemic that upended consumer habits and accelerated e-commerce, she decided to act. “I was convinced there were many more people like me,” she adds. “And during Covid, I felt like I had nothing to lose.” What began as a digital storefront quickly grew into something more ambitious – an ecosystem supplying hundreds of retailers and over a thousand hospitality venues across the UAE.

If the early days were defined by scarcity, the present moment is characterised by abundance, and credibility. “Global, well-recognised brands in 0.0% are now available,” she notes, citing familiar names like Guinness 0.0, Corona Cero and Tanqueray 0.0. “That really helps with consumer trust.”

But brand recognition is only part of the story. The real shift, she argues, is behavioural. “The consumer mindset is now fully aligned with why the category exists in the first place – it’s the consumers who are driving the growth.” Health and wellness, once a fleeting trend, has calcified into something more permanent.

“It’s no longer a trend,” she says. “It’s a new way of life.”

Hospitality, ever attuned to both cultural currents and commercial realities, has followed suit. “They’re actively trying to improve their non-alcoholic offering, not just for customer satisfaction, but because premium non-alcoholic drinks generate more margin than soft drinks.” In other words, the zero-proof movement isn’t just good optics, it’s good business.

The category itself is evolving at pace. Non-alcoholic beers, she notes, are “leading the charge” – accessible, familiar, and increasingly indistinguishable from their full-strength counterparts. Meanwhile, alcohol-free wines and 0.0% spirits are carving out space on serious menus, particularly in high-end venues where pairing matters.

That shift is evident across the UAE’s dining scene. At Roberto’s and La Petite Maison Dubai, non-alcoholic wine lists now sit alongside their traditional counterparts, while venues like Row on 45 are pushing things further with dedicated zero-proof pairings, often made in-house. Even more casual favourites, such as 3Fils, are part of the conversation.

For Erika, the mission remains both personal and expansive: “We are working tirelessly to make premium non-alcoholic options available everywhere our customers are.” It’s a far cry from the limited shelves of 2015, and a sign that, in the UAE at least, drinking less no longer means settling for less.

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