A WELL-ROUNDED
BEVERAGE
MENU The latest non-alcoholic beverage research from Datassential can help you keep up with the latest trends. By Maeve Webster & Mike Kostyo
At New York’s Atera restaurant, servers prepare an elaborate drink tableside, sifting this, whisking that, all the while discussing the history of the ingredients and the reasoning behind each action. But they’re not making a cocktail. The drink, a tableside matcha service, is part of Atera’s elaborate $65 “Tea Progression,” designed and implemented by Jeff Ruiz, who is the tea curator and captain at the restaurant. Across the country, a number of restaurants have begun to take their non-alcoholic beverage programs very seriously, elevating the coffees, teas, juices and other non-alcoholic beverages through meticulous sourcing, avant-garde ideas and elaborate preparations.
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Chicago’s Next restaurant offers a non-alcoholic drink pairing menu designed to pair with the ever-changing theme: a green tomato, garlic, and white pepper drink for a Sicilian-inspired menu; or, a watermelon, red pepper and beef tea paired with a Tortilla Espanola for a menu that honored Spain’s famed El Bulli restaurant. Portland, Maine’s Hugo selects single-origin coffees from local Tandem Coffee Roasters and pairs them with the “ideal brewing method” – press, pour-over, siphon, etc. – to finish the meal. It’s not just fine dining restaurants that are upping their game. Consumers today have access to high-quality, on-trend experiences on an everyday basis – from coffee beans sourced from far-flung locales and brewed to exacting specifications at national coffee chains, to fast casual burger restaurants offering house-made craft sodas to set themselves apart. To keep up, operators of every stripe are experimenting with on-trend flavors (herbal infusions, alternative sweeteners like molasses and flavored honeys), global drinks (Cuban coffee, Thai iced tea), and attention-getting brewing methods (tableside presses, carbonated tea on draft). Datassential’s recent MenuTrends Keynote: NonAlcoholic Beverages, is specifically designed to understand the current non-alcoholic beverage market’s major trends, the fastest-growing drinks on menus, and what consumers want. Here’s a peek at a few of the findings from this comprehensive report that you can leverage in your own drink program, in order to meet consumer expectations and create a memorable, well-rounded beverage program that includes both alcoholic and non-alcoholic options.