At Jungle, a rum-focused neighborhood tiki bar in Boulder, the bartenders have been mixing non-alcoholic versions of their classics since Covid, and the demand has only grown. One recent seasonal option, the Dirty Hippie, combined NA aperitif, kava, verjus, grapefruit, cactus kombucha and lime, served in a Volkswagen bus tiki mug. It looked every bit like a Jungle cocktail, minus the alcohol.
The bar’s approach reflects a broader shift underway across Boulder County, where breweries, distilleries, bars and restaurants are expanding their zero-proof offerings. As alcohol consumption drops to longtime lows nationwide, producers say they are responding to changing expectations from drinkers and nondrinkers alike.
Breweries, distilleries, bars and restaurants have seen a post-pandemic drop in alcohol consumption as a number of factors converge: growing concerns about the health impacts of alcohol, higher prices tied to supply chain disruptions and a demographic shift as younger consumers drink less than previous generations. Gallup reported this summer that just 54% of adults consider themselves drinkers, continuing a multiyear slide to the lowest rate recorded since the poll began in 1939.
Upslope Brewing, one of Boulder’s better-known craft beer producers, has been working to plant its flag as a “craft beverage house.” Last year it added a nonalcoholic version of its craft lager, a move both in response to shifting consumer habits and an opportunity to enter a growing market segment.
Upslope Sales Director Ryan Cobb said the company saw room for a regional brewery to make its mark in NA beer. Marketing Director Katie Hill said they saw the post-Covid shift and wanted to accommodate people’s changing habits.
“It’s really in line with our commitment to innovation and to listening to our customers the best we can and responding as quickly as possible,” she said, noting that Upslope also offers hard seltzers, a hard yerba mate and a wide range of rotating beer styles. “We’re really trying to just be that one-stop shop for people.”
Because the process of making NA beer is more technologically complex than brewing regular beer, Upslope partnered with Golden-based Sustainable Beverage Technologies to develop the recipe. The brewery continues to produce non-alcoholic Craft Light offsite using SBT’s proprietary BrewVo system, the same technology behind Deschutes Brewing’s NA version of Black Butte Porter, which stood out to the Upslope team in early tastings.
Federal labeling laws prohibit non-alcoholic products from using certain words, such as beer, lager or ale. But legal language aside, Cobb and Hill say the result is surprisingly close to Upslope’s traditional craft lager.
“I feel that we landed as close as you possibly can get,” Cobb said. “To me, our NA has a little bit more of a cracker flavor to it, a little bit more of a malt back to it.”
Hill said the NA lager is likely just the start. “We would love to continue the innovation and get that West Coast IPA version out there, if that could make sense,” she said. “This is just the beginning, really.”
A distillery reimagines gin and whiskey — without the alcohol
In Longmont, Abbott & Wallace Distilling has seen steady growth in orders for its non-alcoholic cocktails, which now make up 10 to 15% of tasting room sales. Early in 2025, the distillery expanded into bottled NA products with Jasper and Ember, alternatives to gin and whiskey, respectively.
Jasper began with the distillery’s top-selling Alpine gin recipe, which co-founder John Young adapted using water distillation.
“That works pretty well. We’re capturing a lot of those essential oils, but there is a slightly different mix of things that will be extracted by water vapor or alcohol,” he said. “The juniper doesn’t do as well, but we have a lot of the other botanicals.”
Developing Ember was more challenging, he said. Young initially expected it to be grain-based, but experiments with corn and barley “turned into a sticky mess.”
The distillery shifted course, using a mostly botanical blend. Some botanicals — mace, orange and allspice — are distilled. Earthier ingredients like orris root, licorice root and anise are made into tinctures, while vanilla, a tannin extract and capsaicin add texture and a whiskey-like sensation.
“If you’re going to have it side by side with whiskey, it’s certainly not gonna taste like whiskey. None of them do,” Young said. “It tastes all right on its own, it’s kind of more like a digestif. But once you get it into a cocktail, it works really well and you get some nice depth and complexity from our blend of herbs and spices.”
Abbott & Wallace has signed with a Colorado distributor and is exploring broader distribution. Because the products contain no alcohol, they can be stocked in grocery stores, coffee shops and other retail spaces that do not hold liquor licenses.
“You can put them in grocery stores or coffee shops. You don’t have to have a liquor license,” he said. “We really need to figure out how to open up that market, because there’s just really no limit on product placement.”
Jungle makes tiki culture accessible for nondrinkers
At Jungle, the nonalcoholic program has become a defining part of the bar’s identity. The team began crafting NA versions of its tiki classics in 2019, just before the pandemic, but the disruption pushed them to rethink who the menu was for.
“It gave us some time to reevaluate what the menu was going to be and who it would be accessible for, especially during that time period, trying to reach as many people as you can,” said beverage director Daniel Shuford. “It was important that anyone could come here, whether they were drinking or not.”
Because tiki cocktails rely heavily on syrups, juices and infusions, Shuford said they lend themselves more easily to NA adaptations. The team uses Seedlip Spice or bitter aperitivo syrups as bases and adjusts ratios to maintain the character of the original drink.
“We felt it was important, even though tiki is mostly juices and syrups, to do it in a way that felt like the actual drinks,” he said. “The focus does shift a little bit to what’s accentuating those backup flavors.”
A couple of years ago, Jungle began adding a rotating NA house original to the other side of the menu. The Dirty Hippie proved more popular than earlier offerings, which were essentially riffs on the Negroni.
“Not everyone is a Negroni bittersweet drinker,” Shuford said. “When we went more for that tropical cocktail vibe, I think it’s just more accessible to more people.”
The growth of the NA program has made Jungle more approachable for non-drinkers, Shuford said.
“We have a really wide demographic of who we see in here, from families, groups of friends, it’s great to also see some college kids come in and there’s a 20-year-old friend with a 21-year-old party [and] can still come in and have fun,” he said. “I think it just makes us more inclusive.”
I’ve yet to see any convincing data that shows wholesale or MSRP alcohol sales are trending downward; whereas its very clear consumers are increasing being turned off by ever-rising prices for both food and beverages at restaurants/bars/breweries. So are these NA sales actually offsetting that decline or are they merely a marginal contribution to overall sales? An economist calls this price elasticity….where it seems like those with a vested business interest or are marketing/salespersons prefer to wave all this away with discounted phrasing like “changing tastes”.