Some 43% of UK adults aged 18 to 34 have stopped drinking alcohol entirely, and more than half of that age group have cut back (Ocado survey, 2025). For an industry where alcohol delivers £4.5 billion of revenue — 18.4% of the total — and the fattest margins on the menu, that is not a lifestyle footnote. It is a structural shift in where drink profit will come from.
Alcohol sales are slipping, gently but consistently
Weekly drinks tracking shows sales in managed sites running 1.4% to 3% below the previous year through autumn 2025, with spirits and wine underperforming and cider dipping harder. The most common reason non-drinkers give is simple lack of interest — cited by 58% — ahead of health concerns at 30%. This is moderation as a preference, not a phase, and it skews heavily towards the diners who will dominate restaurant spend for the next two decades.
What replaces the wine list
The demand has not disappeared; it has migrated. Britvic's 2025 soft drinks review found 52% of consumers likely or very likely to order mocktails, and 41% planning to drink more mocktails or low-alcohol options this year. Among Gen Z and millennials, premium soft drinks, flavoured waters and crafted non-alcoholic serves now account for 31% of drink occasions in hospitality settings. Coffee is quietly taking the digestif slot. The restaurants capturing this spend treat non-alcoholic options as a category to be designed and priced — house-made sodas, proper non-alcoholic pairings, adult-tasting serves at adult prices — rather than a fridge of soft drinks listed at the bottom of the menu.
Protecting the margin
A £9 mocktail built on syrup, citrus and labour can carry a better percentage margin than a £9 glass of wine, but only if it is rung through and priced like a signature product. The risk is drift: tables that once ordered two bottles now order tap water because nothing on the list invites them to do otherwise. Drinks data by category — alcoholic, non-alcoholic, hot — is the early-warning system here, showing whether declining wine sales are being replaced or simply lost.
Operator takeaway
Audit your last three months of drinks sales. If non-alcoholic revenue is not growing while national demand surges, the gap is your list, not your guests. Two or three genuinely crafted non-alcoholic serves, priced with confidence, recover margin that the wine list is quietly losing.