The sober lie: are South Africans really drinking less?
You've read the headlines: Gen Z is sober, nobody drinks anymore, the party is over. Then you look at the South African data and find tequila up +118% and the pornstar martini up +560%. So which is it? Both — and the contradiction is the story.
The 60-second version
- 🍸 South Africa isn't going sober — it's going premium. Tequila +118%, cognac +82%, espresso martini +98%, pornstar martini +560%.
- 🌿 The sober movement is real but small. Sober-curious searches rose +203% and mocktails +58% — fast growth from a tiny base.
- 🤝 They're the same trend. "Drink better, not more" explains both the premium boom and the rise of the quality non-alcoholic option.
- 🍷 The Western Cape leads the no/low-alcohol curve; KZN stays loyal to the full-strength sweet drink.
There is a global story that gets repeated so often it has become a fact: young people have stopped drinking, alcohol is in structural decline, and the night out is dying. It's a great story. In South Africa, the data only half-agrees — and the half it disagrees with is loud.
The international evidence itself is more nuanced than the headlines. The IWSR, the world's main authority on alcohol data, found that Gen Z drinking participation actually rebounded to 73% by 2025 — broadly in line with all adults — and that much of the earlier dip was cyclical, driven by cost-of-living, not a permanent rejection of alcohol.1 South Africa's search behaviour tells a similar, louder story: we didn't quit. We traded up.
Exhibit A
The premium boom nobody warned you about
If drinking were dying, the fanciest, most expensive categories would be the first to go. Instead they're the ones exploding. Agave spirits and aged brown spirits — the trade-up categories — are running away with the market.
Four-year change in search demand across alcohol categories.
The takeaway: Premium and cocktail categories dominate the leaderboard. The pornstar martini alone is up over five-fold.
This mirrors the global "premiumisation" pattern the IWSR tracks for tequila and agave spirits — drinkers spending the same money on fewer, better drinks.23
Monthly search demand for the signature cocktails of the era.
The takeaway: The pornstar martini went from niche to default; the espresso martini and Aperol spritz rode the same wave.
Cocktails are a premium signal in disguise — they bundle premium spirits, a venue and an experience into one R120 glass. Their rise is the clearest fingerprint of "drink better, not more".
Exhibit B
The sober movement is real — just smaller than the hype
None of this means the wellness wave is fake. The no/low-alcohol categories are genuinely growing fast. The catch is the base: "sober-curious" tripled, but from a number so small that even tripled it's a rounding error next to tequila.
Four-year change for sober-curious and alcohol-free categories.
The takeaway: Real, healthy growth rates — sober-curious +203%, mocktails +58% — but off small bases.
The honest read: a meaningful, sticky niche is forming (and worth catering to), but it is nowhere near a takeover. South Africa is adding sober options, not subtracting alcohol.
Put the two narratives on one chart and the "paradox" resolves itself. The sober line and the premium line both go up — because they're the same impulse pointing in two directions: more intention about what's in the glass.
Sober-curious & non-alcoholic beer vs tequila & cognac, monthly.
The takeaway: Both trends rise together. The story isn't "less drinking" — it's "more deliberate drinking".
A drinker who has a premium tequila on Friday and a mocktail on Tuesday isn't two different people. They're the modern South African drinker, moderating by occasion rather than quitting.
What's actually in the glass
The national drinks cabinet
Step back from growth rates and look at sheer volume of interest, and the cabinet is still dominated by the classics — beer, wine and big spirits — with cocktails and no/low as the fast-growing newcomers around the edges.
Composite search demand grouped into the major beverage families.
The takeaway: Beer, wine and spirits still own the cabinet; cocktails and no/low are the challengers, not the kings.
Context matters: the sober movement makes headlines because it's new, not because it's big. The volume is still firmly with full-strength categories.
A no/low-alcohol basket — sober-curious, non-alcoholic beer, mocktails, alcohol-free gin, kombucha — per million people.
The takeaway: The Western Cape leads the sober-curious curve, with Gauteng close behind and KZN well back.
It fits the wider provincial picture: the Cape over-indexes on wellness and considered consumption, while KZN stays loyal to the full-strength, sweet, easy-drinking option.
| The premium boom | The sober movement | |
|---|---|---|
| Headline number | Tequila +118%, pornstar martini +560% | Sober-curious +203%, mocktails +58% |
| Size | Huge volume | Small but fast-growing |
| Driver | "Drink better" | "Drink less / not tonight" |
| Same person? | Often, yes — moderating by occasion, not quitting | |
The verdict
We didn't get sober. We got picky.
The "sober South Africa" headline is a half-truth wearing a lab coat. Yes, the wellness niche is real and growing. But the dominant story in four years of data is premiumisation: fewer, better, more deliberate drinks. The country didn't put down the glass — it upgraded what's in it, and learned to be comfortable ordering a mocktail when it doesn't feel like one. That's not the death of drinking culture. It's drinking culture growing up.
South Africa is sober-curious in January and tequila-committed by February. Both numbers are real.
- Source. Aggregated South African search demand for ~1,000 drink keywords, monthly, June 2022 – May 2026.
- Growth. First 12 months vs the most recent 12. Fast-growing niches (sober-curious) start from small bases — we flag this throughout.
- Caveat. Search interest signals intent and curiosity, not litres poured.
References & further reading
Drink figures are PartyTrends' own analysis of the search-demand dataset described above. Sources below corroborate the wider industry context.
- IWSR, Gen Z NOT the generation of moderation, survey reveals (Jun 2025) — participation rebounded to 73%; decline largely cyclical. theiwsr.com
- IWSR, How will the agave price crash impact tequila? — global tequila/agave premiumisation. theiwsr.com
- The Spirits Business, World Spirits Report 2025: Tequila & mezcal — agave outperforms a declining wider market. thespiritsbusiness.com
- IWSR, How is the moderation trend evolving? — no/low-alcohol context. theiwsr.com
- Business Day, Beyond beer: SAB sees consumers' appetites changing (Aug 2025) — ciders & sweet flavoured drinks growing fastest. businessday.co.za
- Euromonitor International, RTDs in South Africa — strong RTD demand. euromonitor.com
- PartyTrends, Drink Stats & Methodology. partytrends.co.za/stats