Predicting 2023’s drinking trends

This tour is pinned to Carnival, but hopefully this will become a regular offering, as I think themed drinking tours have a lot of potential in this area. Across the bay, for example, the Surfside Shuttle in Orange Beach (facebook.com/thesurfsideshuttle) offers a Bushwacker tour that shuttles people along a route visiting popular beach bars for frozen drinks. It’s a fun and much safer alternative to going it alone.

Downtown, “Panini” Pete Blohme is taking over the former MoonPie General Store location in the RSA Trustmark Building (107 St. Francis St., Unit 115) and turning it into a food hall with booze. Parc Le Tralour Food Hall and Event Center will offer a bunch of Panini Pete brands — Mob Town Slice, Taco Mysterio, Panini Pete’s and Pickled Chickens — plus happy hours for the after-work crowd. It should be open this winter.

Pete’s hospitality group is also remodeling the Lake Forest Yacht Club Restaurant in Daphne, a waterfront property with 7,000 square feet of space for eating and drinking; turning the old Ed’s Seafood Shed location on the Causeway into Fire on the Causeway, an upscale live fire restaurant with a bar; and moving Ed’s Seafood Shed to the former Beef O’Brady’s location in Spanish Fort. He also just opened a juice bar and Mexican-inspired fruiteria called Fairhope Squeeze in the Fairhope French Quarter. The man doesn’t rest.

Also downtown, Sporty T’s steakhouse and sports bar will open later this year at 157 Dauphin St., across from Bienville Square in a former clothing store. The Planning Commission recently approved their zoning variance, allowing the bar to have 130 seats, 114 inside and 16 outside, where “customers can eat, drink and socialize while watching the latest televised sports event.”

Nationally, non-alcoholic options continue to increase, especially non-alcoholic spirits. I think (hope!) they will start showing up on local cocktail menus alongside NA beers. At the store, tequila is still the most popular spirit, but premixed or ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails are the fastest-growing spirits category. You may have noticed Tanqueray and Bacardi have started selling canned gin and tonics and rum and colas, so expect to see a lot more of those.

As I pointed out a few months ago, Fireball now produces a malt beverage version of their cinnamon whiskey, which is legal to sell in grocery stores. Since then, Fireball became one of the Top 50 beer brands in the country. Fireball! A beer! Other liquor brands are following their lead; Southern Comfort now sells a malt beverage version in stores. Who’s next?

In October, three consumer advocacy groups sued the Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) over its opaque labeling requirements, saying the organization failed to “treat alcohol labeling with the same basic transparency … as non-alcoholic beverages and food products.” In November, TTB relented and announced they would soon require standardized labels on wine, beer and spirits. Every bottle and can will need to list alcohol content and allergen information, and potentially full ingredient lists and nutrition information such as calories. This may drastically affect purchasing behaviors and could launch “diet” alcohol brands.

The TTB is also poised to adopt legal standards that define American single malt as its own spirit subcategory. That means it would be on the same level as bourbon and single malt Scotch in terms of defined identity and legal protections. Distilleries may soon be pushing their American single malts made from 100 percent malted barley as the next big thing.

Espresso martinis made a comeback last year, right alongside bucket hats and crop tops. Gen Z loves all things ‘90s, and this obsession with nostalgia will likely continue through 2023. Expect to see drinks like Appletinis, Cosmos, Mudslides and elaborate layered shots “rediscovered” and show up on menus — or at least on TikTok.