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1/5/2026
dry january
Dry january is the talk of the industry every year - working on the retail side of a large beer company we do see and feel the drop at the beginning of the year.
One week into 2026 and our expectations of this being the most participated dry january to date have been met so far - I don’t have any quantitative data to show, but all it takes is a bit of conversation to get a sense for how much bigger it has become.
Nearly half of my friends / coworkers are participating.
And interestingly enough, the sentimental divide is very dramatic - you’re either doing dry january, or your response to the inquiry is “fuck that.”
The latter sentiment i guess echoes a general feeling around a drinking occasion, a fuck-that-i’ll-do-as-I-please mentality.
Years ago I was tasked with exploring the non-alcoholic beverage space - Athletic was on the rise, and we as a culture were starting to get burnt out on the early days of the pandemic when we all became home bartenders and bread bakers.
I thought it was funny at the time because, well, there are already so many non-alcoholic beverage options. Don’t wanna hard seltzer? Have you hear of seltzer water?
Obviously there’s more at play than just functional product benefits when it comes to drinking anything - people want to feel social while they’re sober, hence NA alternatives that behave like your typical libation.
As a part of this territorial exploration, I interviewed a lot of younger drinkers.
Most of the sentiment relates to what i just said - being social while sober - but one bit of tension resonated above that for me.
“Why do I feel the need to justify not drinking?” one respondent posed.
Valid point, I thought. We, as a culture, don’t often call into question the moments when we decide to imbibe, yet we need to provide some sort of rationale for why we choose not to, even though being sober is popularly considered baseline behavior.
I guess it also relates to the being-social-while-sober sentiment, but the question provides a bit more insight into the emotional benefits of NA product offerings.
Because ultimately when we drink alcohol, it’s typically in a drinking context - so having NA packaging that imitates it’s boozy counterpart eases the anxiety around the “why” we may not want to answer for whatever reason.
I guess we just don’t want all of our choices to be called into question.