From flavoured gin to Dry January, Metro's Drink Editor gives us the low-down on the alcohol trends that he hopes will die out in 2025.
There are several trends I’d like to see disappear this year… If there’s one thing you need to know about me, it’s that I’ll always give a trend a chance, especially when it comes to drinks. Often they’re creative, fun and only last on social media for five minutes, but some are downright disgusting and much longer-lasting – these are the ones that need to be unalived in 2025, quite frankly.
For Metro’s Drinks Club column, I’ve covered everything from rosé blended with chopped jalapeños, pouring cheap red wine in a blender to make it taste more expensive, drank tomato liqueur, put vodka in a Brita filter, and turned leftover strawberry Bonne Maman into jam jar cocktails. It’s safe to say I’m a firm believer that you should never knock a trend without trying it, as there could well be a gem worth discovering amongst the dross. 100% of the time, there isn’t, but that’s not to say there never will be. But after giving trends so much of my time, I’ve realised that there are some that need to disappear with immediate effect. You’ll see them in supermarkets, bars and restaurants, and disappointingly, many have stuck around so long that they’re becoming part of our world order. Allow me to make a case for the following drinks trends I wish would make a swift exit in 2025… Rob Buckhaven with a cocktail and a marinated yellow cherry tomato Dry January How do you know if someone’s doing Dry January? They’ll tell you, over and over again. And nothing says ‘new year, new you’ like turning every social outing into a monastic retreat of abstinence. Health experts even advise against it, as people tend to resume drinking in February with even more gusto than before. I’ve recently written about the alternative methods to cut down on booze, but in a more sustained way throughout the year. There’s Zebra-Striping, where you have a non-alcoholic drink every other drink or Bookending, making your first and last drink of the even alcohol-free. Flavoured Gin The gin market is super crowded, with distilleries getting creative with botanicals to stand out. Juniper always takes the lead, as it should, though flavoured gins dilute it with gimmicky flavours like Christmas pudding, Hubba Bubba, slow-roasted pineapple and unicorn tears, added post-distillation. Then there’s gin liqueurs, which contain significantly more sugar than regular gin , some up to 65g . So, until the lines between gin, flavoured gins and gin liqueurs become less blurred, the quality of the overall gin category will continue to nosedive. Low-end Prosecco Without sounding snobby , at the bottom end, prosecco is homogenous, cloyingly sweet and mind-numbingly simple, usually served tepid. The worst part is that people have come to expect that standard, at weddings and bottomless brunches, the only payoff being its micro price tag. At the top end , superior quality grapes, high altitudes and careful winemaking practices makes prosecco a far more complex, nuanced and thought-provoking sipping experience. It’s entirely worth spending extra for the initials ‘DOCG’ on the label. Low-end prosecco needs to go Overly Sweet Canned Cocktails I tasted over 30 canned cocktails for my column and was shocked by their astronomically high sugar levels. Some were so saccharine; my mouth went numb. Thanks to the explosion of the ready-to-drink market, we now get every known beverage in canned form. Some, we never knew we needed and still don’t. Look, I fully back the can format for its convenience and sustainably leaning credentials, but very few taste of what they’re professing to be. That said, I have to namecheck MOTH for being the finest, bar-quality, canned cocktails I’ve ever tasted. Wine in heavy bottles I am still finding wine bottles as heavy as a dumbbell, built like a WW2 tank projectile. There’s zero benefit to them versus a lightweight bottle, only downsides. They don’t help store wine any better, they have a colossal carbon footprint and are significantly more expensive to produce. Bottle weight has been found to be one of the least important factors in decision making by a wine consumer, so it’s just as well that leading retailers have signed a pledge to reduce the average bottle weight from 550g to below 420g, so a 25% reduction. Overpriced non-alcoholic drinks So, new research shows that non-alcoholic drinks tend to be more pricey than standard alcoholic drinks. Tell me something I didn’t know. But with no duty to drive up the price, how come they aren’t cheaper? Because low or no-alcohol drinks, whether that be beer, wine or spirits, are made by producing a standard alcoholic drink then removing the alcohol via a process of ‘dealcoholisation’. Once removed, the producer has to plug the flavour and texture gaps, often with a host of expensive ingredients that mimic alcohol. There are effectively three processes involved, so I get that it’s painstaking. But so is paying £16 for a bottle of zero-alcohol gin… Wine under £5 This is a tricky one, as I’m all over a bargain. You only have to look at my last piece for Metro to see that a £4.99 wine that punches above its weight is my idea of a good time. But, given that duty on a bottle of wine is currently £2.67 , together with VAT, profit margins, logistics and packaging costs, it means that only around 30p is spent on the wine in the bottle. This isn’t in any way sustainable for anyone, particularly knowing that if you stretch to £10, it suddenly jumps to around £2 spent on the wine. So really, counterintuitively, you’re getting more value for money with the more expensive wine. Comment nowWhat drinks trend would you love to see disappear in 2025?Comment Now Overly elaborate cocktail garnishes Who can forget the viral TikTok hot dog cocktail, garnished with a swizzle stick carrying four savoury snacks, including a Frankfurter sausage? Then there’s a machine which forms a kind of liquid nitrogen cap on top of the cocktail. I’ve had the nitro-lid cocktail before, and it was fine, but not world-foundation-shaking. It generally makes me suspicious that the theatrical element is masking a pretty run-of-the-mill drink, or one that has too many components to be delicious. Look, fancy mixologists, I don’t want a Sunday roast teetering over the side of my glass, we need to rein in the garnishes and focus on the liquid. Only drinking rosé in spring/summer Here is a PSA for seasonal rosé drinkers: The autumn/winter rosé hiatus shouldn’t be a thing, there’s no reason to down tools and stop drinking the pink stuff from September to April. The uniqueness of the rosé wine style is its versatility, with a whole spectrum of pink out there, from barely-there to almost-red, and each with a different flavour profile and texture. And on a personal level, there’s few wines that go as well with Christmas din-dins as a ballet-slipper pink, Provençale rosé. Looking for more expert drinks content? If you count yourself a purveyor of the finer things in life, Metro’s Drinks Column is where you need to be. Immerse yourself in the world of good drink, fronted by industry expert Rob Buckhaven – a place for readers to whet their whistle with the latest and greatest in the world of drinks. From unpacking the best supermarket wines from Aldi, Tesco and Lidl, to introducing audiences to the wallet-friendly Cremant out-bubbling the fanciest of French Champagnes , this is a haven for those who love to celebrate. Stay ahead of the curve as Rob plucks from the vines the wines of the season and the spirits you need to know about; speaking with experts and mixologists while unpacking the latest concoctions, finding the best non-alcoholic options for those looking to moderate, discovering the best food pairings for your drops, and going up against the latest TikTok chatter to demystify the liquid landscape. Can you really make cheap vodka taste expensive by putting it through a Brita filter? What’s the best wine to drink after sex And, truly, how should we be storing our wine? Read More. Do you have a story to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.
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