On a Saturday in December, the pop-up bar in Montpelier’s North Branch Café was packed to the walls. Twentysomethings sipped drinks laden with fancy herbs in the dimly lit space. On a makeshift stage, burlesque performers, drag queens and belly dancers took turns captivating a crowd of nearly 60 people. The café — a quiet, casual place by day — had been transformed into a standing-room-only pop-up bar called Flower Haus for the night.
Despite the swanky vibe, the evening was alcohol-free. The drinks being sipped were mocktails, and the purpose of this “dedicated sober herbal wellness” lounge was to create a comfortable venue for those who want to socialize without alcohol.
Mollie Gaito, the 28-year-old organizer of Flower Haus, has been amazed by the turnout at the two events they’ve put on since October.
“I put out as many chairs as I could at North Branch, but it’s just never enough,” Gaito said. “There’s a real desire for these types of spaces without the pressure of alcohol.”
The success of Flower Haus reflects a larger cultural moment. Gen Z and millennial Vermonters are saying goodbye to booze at record rates. Binge drinking by young adults in Vermont has decreased 15 percent in the past 10 years, according to community surveys by the Vermont Department of Health. Alcohol use among 18- to 20-year-olds has fallen nearly 10 percent in the same time period, according to the same surveys. Nationally, drinking rates have declined at about the same rate among younger generations.
A variety of factors may be at play according to experts: the pandemic, the legalization of cannabis, the rise of the wellness industry, growing mental health awareness and, more broadly, alcohol’s declining reputation.
The result, though, is evident: Bar menus list mocktail options and nonalcoholic beers; sober meetups and alcohol-free dance party posters litter coffee shop bulletin boards.
Vermonters’ alcohol use overall remains among the highest in the country. In fact, substance misuse by Vermonters age 65 and older is increasing, according to the health department’s community surveys.
Meanwhile the number of high school-age Vermonters who have reported trying alcohol has decreased by 10 percent in the past decade, according to the department.
One reason alcohol consumption may be down among younger Vermonters is the increase in rates of anxiety and depression in that age group. The number of young people prescribed antidepressants — which often cannot be mixed with alcohol — has increased significantly in recent years.
“A lot of the time it just comes back to mental health and how alcohol makes a client feel,” said Brittany Haskins, a Burlington-based therapist who said more and more of her clients are deciding to become sober for that reason.
Jesse Taylor, a 31-year-old who has been sober for seven years, said depression motivated her to quit drinking. “Alcohol just really ramped up all of my depression symptoms,” she said. “I used alcohol as a numbing agent and as a form of escape.” Now Taylor is a regular attendee at local sober dance parties and a mentor for friends looking to make a change.
When the pandemic started, many people drank more: One study, by the Keck School of Medicine, found that heavy drinking among adults increased by more than 20 percent during the pandemic.
But the lockdowns may have also motivated some people to finally shift away from alcohol. Alex Frantz, a 29-year-old Burlington resident who has launched an informal series of alcohol-free get-togethers, found herself drinking more during the pandemic. It was a scary reality that led Frantz and her partner to take a pause.
“We wanted to explore what it would be like to connect with people without alcohol being what we were connecting over,” she said.
Some businesses got a jump start in that period, too. Lisa Danforth, founder of tonique — a mocktail bar catering service based in South Burlington — was motivated to start her business when she saw how much alcohol consumption was rising during the pandemic. She wanted to offer an alternative, particularly on college campuses.
Danforth wasn’t sure whether there would be enough demand, but since launching in 2023, “It’s been incredibly busy,” she told Seven Days.
Brooks Addington, the Manchester-based founder of TÖST — an alcohol-free sparkling beverage company that launched 10 years ago — said the pandemic marked a turning point for him, as well. His company grew by more than 300 percent in 2021 alone and now has 18 distributors in more than 24 states.
Bars and restaurants offer more nonalcoholic options than ever: phony negronis, herbaceous spirits and nonalcoholic aperitifs, to name a few.
Gold Restaurant in Burlington’s Old North End launched a build-your-own mocktail menu for “Dry January” this year. The drinks have been so popular that owner Charles Spock said Gold may continue the offering when January ends.
Spock noted that it’s not just sober customers who are purchasing mocktails; some people alternate their alcoholic beverages with nonalcoholic drinks during meals.
“The nonalc industry is rapidly growing,” Addington, the TÖST owner, said. “I think there’s much bigger recognition about what we’re putting into our bodies than there was even six months ago.”
In fact, earlier this month, the U.S. surgeon general suggested that alcoholic drinks carry labels warning about the links between alcohol and several forms of cancer.
“Those types of public health messages do have an impact,” said Traci Sawyers, director of prevention services at the Vermont Department of Health. Sawyers said she believes the effort to educate young people about the risks of drinking is having a real impact, much like the national movement against smoking in the 1990s.
Meanwhile, cannabis consumption among young adults has increased by almost 10 percent in the past decade.
“People aren’t necessarily feeling that they have to go to alcohol to get some type of mood-altering experience,” Addington said.
Some just want to avoid hangovers. “The people at Flower Haus don’t want to feel sick the next day after going out,” Gaito said. “They want to really be present with who they’re talking to.”
Studies show that Gen Z and millennials are also more likely to care about their overall wellness compared to past generations.
“I was really scared when I first got sober that I would never party again.” Jakee Zaccor
“You’re not going to meal prep and do all the things that are good for you if you’re super hungover,” said Jakee Zaccor, a 36-year-old Burlington-based graphic designer who has been sober for a decade.
Physically healthy as it is, giving up alcohol can have an isolating effect. “I was really scared when I first got sober that I would never party again,” Zaccor said.
But she found she could still enjoy going out without the social lubrication of a few drinks. While living in New York City, she started attending sober dance parties. She moved to Vermont in 2019. Missing her sober community, in 2023 she launched SHAKE, a series of sober dance parties in yoga studios across the city. SHAKE took a pause in 2024, but Zaccor said she plans to ramp back up this year.
In Addison County, Margaret Schultz has been hosting an annual substance-free music festival, Peace Fest, that attracts hundreds of attendees. Many who attend don’t live completely alcohol-free lives. Still, the substance-free aspect of the festival resonates with attendees, Schultz said.
Being young and committed to sobriety can be challenging. That’s what Frantz, the 29-year-old who quit drinking during the pandemic, learned when she and her partner shifted away from alcohol.
“When you meet someone new,” Frantz said, “the first thing they say is: ‘Hey, can we get a drink?'”
“I realized that outside of AA, or abstinence-focused groups, there really aren’t places for people to socialize without drinking,” she added. “I felt like my life became a little more socially limited when I cut out alcohol.”
Motivated to find an “alcohol-free space that wasn’t about alcohol,” Frantz posted on a Burlington-based Facebook group in November, hoping to connect with one or two sober people. Instead, more than 90 people expressed interest. Frantz sensed she was onto something.
Frantz has organized several meetups for those who responded to her post. A group of about 10 people — ranging from their early twenties to mid-forties — meet every other week for coffee. And once a month Frantz organizes a bigger evening gathering for the group.
The trend does not show signs of slowing. There’s been such high demand for Flower Haus events that Gaito is looking into renting a permanent spot in Montpelier. In fact, she said, another intentionally sober community space — Access Café — had just opened in the old Rabble Rouser building across from the fire department in Montpelier.
It’s good news, she said: more (alcohol-free) drinks to go around.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Dry Generation | Younger Vermonters are drinking less alcohol and embracing sober culture”
This article appears in The Wellness Issue 2025.
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