"It has somehow, impossibly, been five years since I wrote the piece in which I argued forcefully for the many-splendored delights of combining sparkling water with a dash-or five-of cocktail bitters. The market availability in both these product categories has gone gonzo here in the third decade of the 21st century, the great seltzer boom (" c'est La Croix" ) of the late 2010s bouncing happily off the ongoing vogue for bitters of every stripe and extraction as an essential component"
"It seemed like we were primed for a new golden era of the bitters and soda, a sterling epoch for which I was chuffed to serve as the great big booming town cryer. Bitters and soda is good, I proclaimed! Surely this not-a-cocktail but also definitely-a-cocktail was primed to take the post-pandemic drinking milieu by storm! Well-lived history has a way of making fools of us all."
"Verily the nonalcoholic drinking trend boomed voluminously over the last five years, in sales and cultural cachet and investment year-over-year on-trend alpha throughput yada yada , but nearly all of that has been predicated on developing a new lexicon of elixirs and potions and adaptogenic tonics and herbal decoctions and assorted nöotropic nostrums."
Sparkling water combined with a dash of cocktail bitters gained renewed interest as seltzer and bitters availability proliferated, with bars and online shops offering vast selections. Bitters and soda appeared poised to become a mainstream nonalcoholic—or hybrid—favorite in the post-pandemic drinking scene. Instead, the nonalcoholic-drinks boom centered on a new lexicon of elixirs, adaptogenic tonics, herbal decoctions, and other functional concoctions, driving sales, cultural cachet, and investment. N/A beer has been the only beer segment with consistent growth, and repeated attempts to mainstream N/A wine continue. Bitters-and-soda has not captured the same momentum within the broader N/A movement.
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