Going to the beach and taking a sparkling wine, working while having a drink and still being focused, being pregnant and still enjoying a party where you are able to toast – all this is possible with the new 100 percent online store, The Other Bottle.

When someone goes to a party or dines out, alcohol is always present. It's the conventional way to have fun with our peers - that's unquestionable. However, there are more and more people looking for different options, wanting to keep on going out, socialising, having fun and drinking proper drinks for adults but without alcohol.

That’s how The Other Bottle was born - a new store that aims to stand out as an alternative for those who still want to have drinks that taste like alcohol, without the hangover the day after, following the sober-curious trend.

An alcohol-free alternative is for anyone who wants to join this movement. “Our project hopes to be the most inclusive as possible. It's so good that you can keep celebrating and wake up well without feeling tired. Many of our clients who are sportsmen are very happy because they can have a delicious beer and go training the next day”, said Nadja Baldaconi, co-founder of the project.

The founders are two friends who met in London, Fran Zolin and Nadja Baldaconi, who later moved to Portugal. The idea of creating this online store came when Fran decided to become sober and together with Nadja, who was already a mindful drinker, found out this new trend coined in 2014 - sober-curious.

“We started researching together and we discovered that there was this massive trend that was trying to answer the question that I had - Now that I have stopped drinking, how can I socialise without drinking? - That’s why I called Nadja because she already socialised without drinking and when we started our research we found out that there are a lot of people doing that,” said Fran Zolin.

In this e-commerce store you’ll be able to find all kinds of beverages from non-alcoholic spirits to ciders, beers and wines – everything alcohol-free. In addition, all the drinks are low in calories and many of them are vegan and gluten-free, you just have to select the filters if you want a beverage with these traits.

“We are really focused on e-commerce, we really like to work directly with clients and take products to their homes, but we already met with several bars and restaurants and maybe we’ll start to have our products in these establishments, because customers are starting to ask inside bars and restaurants for non-alcoholic options,” Fran said.

“There are a lot of people who want to socialise with good adult drinks but don’t want to have the alcohol, don’t want to have the hangover the next day. That’s how we had the idea of starting this project and following this trend,” they said.

Another aspect of The Other Bottle is that its drinks are not only alcohol-free. All the drinks have to be of high quality and respect the core values of the brand, mainly sustainability, they said. For that reason, The Other Bottle works with two NGOs and one of the initiatives it has is to plant a tree for every order made on the website.

For further information, please visit the website at https://www.theotherbottle.com/. You can also meet them in person every Saturday at the Santos Collective Market in Lisbon.

Author

Paula Martins is a fully qualified journalist, who finds writing a means of self-expression. She studied Journalism and Communication at University of Coimbra and recently Law in the Algarve. Press card: 8252

Paula Martins