MANSFIELD — Cassie Runkle pours a deep fuchsia elixir into a golden bell jigger.
She fills it to the top before dumping it into a glass, its rim lined with pink sugar crystals.
Runkle spent close to seven years a bartender. She loved everything about it, from the artistry of mixing drinks to sharing and sipping them.
But these days, she’s swapped out wine and cocktails for non-alcoholic options.
Runkle added some cranberry juice and ginger beer to her mocktail, then topped it off with a slice of orange.
“Ginger beer is going to bring that little bit of a kick. It’s going to bring that little bit of heat to the back of the throat that you would typically get from an alcoholic beverage,” she said.
Cassie and her husband Brad have been sober for about a year. They say they’ve never felt better.
“I feel more clear, I sleep better,” she said. “My energy level is a lot better.”
Not long after they stopped drinking, the couple discovered a bottle shop in Pittsburgh that carried non-alcoholic beverages. After doing some research, they found just two non-alcoholic bottle shops in Ohio — one in Dayton and one Cleveland.
So they decided to open their own, right here in Mansfield.
Ab0v. Bottle Shop carries non-alcoholic wines, beers, spirits and ready-to-drink cocktails. The Runkles say it’s a way to enjoy the sophisticated taste of an adult beverage without the booze.
“I think what kind of separates (our products) from a soda or a Shirley Temple at a restaurant is the complexity of the ingredients and the flavors and the way that it’s produced,” Brad said.
“It’s high quality ingredients, sustainably sourced and packaged, a lot of them are low and sugars.”
Many ab0v products fall into the functional, adaptogenic category. These drinks often contain herbal and plant-based ingredients like ginseng, ashwagandha and even CBD. Adoptogens have long been used in Eastern medicine to manage stress, anxiety and fatigue.
“I used to love wine, but it would always give me a headache,” Cassie said. “It’s really fun to know that you can enjoy something but still do something good for your body and not wake up the next day going, ‘Did I text my ex?'”
The couple operate out of their home, fulfilling orders across the Mansfield, Cleveland and Columbus markets. While there’s no brick and mortar (yet), the couple does deliver online orders to homes.
They also cater events and do occasional pop-ups. They’re working on expanding partnerships with local restaurants that may want to expand their alcohol-free options.
Non-alcoholic beverage market growing
Market studies show the worldwide demand for non-alcoholic beverages is growing.
Consumer intelligence firm NIQ (formerly Nielsen) reports non-alcoholic options still make up less than 1 percent of the alcoholic beverage industry, but their popularity grows each year.
Between August 2021 and August 2022, non-alcoholic drink sales in the U.S. totaled $395 million, showing a year-over-year growth of 20.6 percent.
Traditional adult beverage companies are taking notice. White Claw introduced its first non-alcoholic seltzers last month. Molson Coors, Captain Morgan, Corona, Samuel Adams, Bacardi, Guinness and Tanqueray have all put out non-alcoholic products.
Nevertheless, Lexington resident Chris Dingess said it’s still hard to find an alcohol-free adult beverage at a local restaurant.
After doing Dry January last year, Dingess decided to give up drinking for good because of the health benefits. She said her drink options are often limited to water and soda when she goes out to dinner.
“This influences where I choose to eat. I prefer places that have non-alcoholic options over those who don’t,” she said. “I don’t want to feel like I’m drinking from the kid’s menu.”
Are alcohol-free beverages safe for people in recovery?
While alcohol-free adult beverages are an appealing alternative to some, experts say drinks that taste or smell like alcohol may be triggering for those in recovery.
“I’m not interested in having a quasi-drinking experience now,” said Phil Mazzocco, a Mansfield resident celebrating 11 months of sobriety. “There is this saying that near beer is ‘near’ beer. That make sense to me.”
It’s also worth nothing that in the U.S., beverages with less than half a percent of alcohol by volume can be marketed as non-alcoholic. This may include de-alcoholized products or even soft drinks that have traces of alcohol from flavoring extracts or natural fermentation, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The Runkles said their zero-proof drinks may be an option for some people in recovery, but they respect the choice to play it safe.
“If you feel that way and you worry that it would be (triggering), we absolutely respect that and would say, don’t tempt yourself in any way, shape or form,” Cassie said.
“The beauty of our botanical functional drinks, though, is they do not have any of the same type of flavor profiles.”
Are there health benefits to drinking?
For years, scientific studies have promoted the idea that there are health benefits to a daily glass of red wine.
A global study published last year challenged that guidance. The study argued that the risk of alcohol consumption outweighs any possible benefit.
The World Health Organization affirmed these findings, calling alcohol a “toxic, psychocative and dependence-producing substance” and a group 1 carcinogen in a statement.
The World Heart Federation followed suit in its report, “The Impact of Alcohol Consumption on Cardiovascular Health: Myths and Measures,” which cited alcohol as a major factor in the rise of cardiovascular disease over the last several decades.
Some studies suggest moderate drinking may lower the risk of a heart attack, stroke and diabetes. However, Robert Shmerling of Harvard Medical School writes these benefits are small and somewhat inconsistent.
Dietary guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control recommend drinking as little as possible, but no more than two drinks a day for men and one for women.