As we wrap up the final days of the month, the movement to go alcohol-free for January is also coming to a close. The idea of a change to start the new year goes back centuries, but the term “Dry January” is more recent – coined and trademarked in the U.K. in 2013 and steadily growing into a global phenomenon in the years since.
The month also coincides with what is typically a post-holiday slump for bars and restaurants. Add to that a younger generation that just isn’t drinking as much, and you could think it would be a detriment to the industry, but Jeffrey Morgenthaler sees it differently.
A non-alcoholic mocktail served at a dive bar in SE Portland on Jan. 28, 2026.
Crystal Ligori / OPB
“Bars will always be necessary, they always will be a gathering space for people,” Morgenthaler said. “To socialize is always gonna be a necessary human need.”
Morgenthaler is an award-winning bartender and author who co-owns Pacific Standard in Portland. He has 30 years of experience in Oregon’s service industry and had an interesting analogy for the nonalcoholic movement.
“You’re gonna hear a lot from grumpy bartenders and bar owners that don’t wanna change, just like you did with the smoking ban,” he said. “And the places that made it are the places that put in smoking patios, cleaned the place up, got the stench of cigarettes out … The places that embraced it and adapted with the times gracefully, made it through.”
When Pacific Standard opened in 2022, not only did it have a robust NA program, but it also started putting the alcohol by volume percent on the menu. He was also quick to point out that nonalcoholic drinks aren’t just for people abstaining from alcohol.
“I still drink, but I can’t really have that many anymore, so I look at the Old Fashioned on the menu, which is 38% alcohol, I’m like, ‘I just got done with work, I definitely need that 38% alcohol drink,’” he laughed. “[Then I’ll] step down to the 4% alcohol drink and maybe I’ll go 0% with some food, and now I’ve had a progression of drinking rather than just drink, drink, drink until somebody tells me I have to stop.”
And it’s not just bars and restaurants changing with the times. Breweries across the state have also embraced the trend, with iconic Bend breweries like Deschutes, Crux and 10 Barrel leading the way on low and no-proof offerings. Oregon wineries are not far behind.
A pair of glasses of Underwood Rosé Bubbles—one alcoholic, one not—sits in front of Union Wine founder Ryan Harms on Jan. 22, 2026.
Crystal Ligori / OPB
This summer, Union Wine Company in Tualatin released a nonalcoholic version of their Underwood Rosé Bubbles. Union Wire was not the first Oregon winery to remove alcohol from its vino, but it is certainly doing it on the largest scale as the number one premium canned wine producer in the country.
But founder and owner Ryan Harms wasn’t always a believer in the NA movement.
“Four or five years ago, there was an employee here in marketing who was like, ‘Hey, we really should be moving into thinking about non-alc, it’s a growing category, and we should think about some formulation for that,’” he said. “And I laughed and in my typical bad humor I think I said, ‘Well, I’m happy to can some water for you.’ It just didn’t make any sense to me.”
He chalks up his own change of heart to a few things: coming out of the pandemic with new priorities and looking for new ways to celebrate with moderation in mind.
“I may want to have a glass of wine, but I may not want to have three glasses of wine,” he said.
Harms also saw interest growing within his staff and community.
“Maybe it’s just also the stage of life collectively that all of us are at, where we’re thinking a little more about what we want, but at the same time not willing to kind of trade off quality and flavor,” he said.
And it turns out a lot of consumers feel the same. Sales of nonalcoholic beer, wine and spirits grew 26% over the past year. And the quality of NA offerings is increasingly improving, with some of the technology used to remove alcohol coming from another very Oregon industry.
Brew Dr. Kombucha founder, Matt Thomas, stands next to a Spinning Cone Column in their Tualatin production facility on Jan. 22, 2026.
Crystal Ligori / OPB
“When you make kombucha in the traditional way, it’s probably got an alcohol content anywhere from 1.5% to 3.5% alcohol,” explained Matt Thomas, the founder and CEO of Brew Dr. Kombucha. “But then we employ technology to remove the alcohol down to a trace amount.”
Conveniently, Brew Dr.’s facility is less than a mile away from the winery, so a partnership was born to dealcoholize the Underwood Rosé Bubbles and Union Wine spent years figuring out how to make the NA stuff taste just as good as the real thing.
It’s something bar owners, like Jeffery Morganthaller, appreciate too – having all this variety gives patrons who are celebrating Dry January something else to wet their palate with.
“It’s so nice to have those options,” he said. “There is the craft experience where I can make a really delicious cocktail or do you wanna just drink a beer? [Now] we’ve got this delicious NA beer or this NA sparkling wine.”
And if the trend towards moderation continues, it doesn’t have to mean it’s at the detriment to Oregon’s bars and restaurants.
