A report by Shayma Bakht for The Times of London.
There was a time, not too long ago, when drinking was cool and A-listers and alcohol went together like gin and tonic. Dean Martin, who held a glass of liquor every time he went on stage, once said “you’re not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on”. George Clooney once motorcycled through Mexico to advertise Tequila. Francis Ford Coppola had his own vineyard.
Now Lewis Hamilton is the latest to cash in on a celebrity drink endorsement, with his “spirits” brand Almave. But the racing driver has added a very modern twist — and it’s not the twist of lemon you can add to a neat Almave. This drink is, he says, for those who “don’t want the alcohol part of the deal”.
Hamilton is, like a growing band of his celebrity contemporaries, launching products that would have Martin clutching the floor in shock, rather than inebriation: non-alcoholic drinks.
From Kylie Minogue’s 0 per cent Prosecco to Katy Perry’s botanicals, the modern A-lister, it seems, is not an alcohol-ingestor. Or, as Hamilton put it when launching his spirit, which imitates the taste of tequila and is made from the Mexican blue agave plant: “I’ve always loved tequila for its taste. But there are times when I don’t want the alcohol part of the deal and I know that there is a growing group of people who want the same.”
Drink lubricated the lives of Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine and Dean Martin
Is drinking no longer cool? The statistics seem to imply that. Public health officials say they are seeing a generational shift for prioritising wellness over partying — with Gen-Zs consuming 20 per cent less than their Millennial counterparts. The non-alcoholic beverages market reached $813.3 billion last year and has been projected to reach $1,470 billion by 2032, according to a report by Acumen Research. In a phrase unlikely to have ever been uttered by Martin, the group explained the trend by saying that younger generations “seek alcohol-free options that align with their health-conscious and socially conscious values”.
With his launch last week of Almave Ambar, for sipping, and Almave Blanco, for mixing, Hamilton is hoping for a chunk of that market.
The seven-times Formula One champion, who has been teetotal for most of his career, and whose most frequent contact with alcohol comes when he is on the podium spraying jeroboams of fizz, has been working with Iván Saldaña, a master distiller at the Mexican spirits company Casa Lumbre. The group claims that the drink follows the typical tequila-making process but skips the fermentation, where the liquid becomes alcoholic.
Hamilton is, by some measures, a late entrant to the non-alcoholic drink industry. In 2021 Bella Hadid, the supermodel, launched her botanical-infused seltzer Kin Euphorics — and then revealed that she had given up booze.
A year later Katy Perry, the singer, launched her sparkling line of non-alcoholic botanical aperitifs with the brand De Soi. Her three flavours, Golden Hour, Champignon Dreams, and Purple Lunewith, are said to be made “for rebalancing your flow” and are “inspired by the French ethos of pleasure with restraint”.
Kylie Minogue also has her own drinks brand
It is clearly a promising niche. Without even making any flow-balance promises, the Australian singer Kylie Minogue’s award-winning Prosecco Rosé is said to have sold a bottle every ten seconds last December, according to the Drinks Business magazine.
At present, such sales figures will not be possible for Hamilton. His fans are able to join the waiting list to purchase the spirit but retailers and bars will only be able to start stocking and selling the products until late next year.
Some of those fans might be surprised to learn that it is not Hamilton’s first entry into the drinks business. When he was 17 he worked as a bartender. “It was a good experience,” he later said, “but the best part was when I quit. On the last day, I cleaned up the bar and I was like, ‘What are these drinks that I’ve been giving everyone?’
“I tried everything, and my dad had to come and pick me up! I was absolutely hammered.”
A report by Shayma Bakht for The Times of London. There was a time, not too long ago, when drinking was cool and A-listers and alcohol went together like gin and tonic. Dean Martin, who held a glass of liquor every time he went on stage, once said “you’re not drunk if you can lie
