SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. — At Sauce on the Blue in Silverthorne, Jay Beacham is the bar manager of one of largest whiskey bars in Colorado, in a ski resort community where they sell a lot of drinks.
“It’s kind of the tradition of skiing, to have drinks after skiing," Beacham said.
These days they also sell a lot more non-alcohol mocktails, so many that Sauce on the Blue now has several options on their menu.
“The mocktails are becoming more popular,” Beacham said. “We put them on the menu because so many guests were asking 'do you have mocktails?'”
Putting more mocktail options on the menu is something Dillon Stein with Building Hope Summit has been working on with bars and restaurants around Summit County. Stein has created a Blue Run Rating for businesses that puts mocktails on their menu and promotes them.
“You see that Blue Run Rating decal in the window, and you’re like this is a place where they not only serve non-alcohol options, but they promote it," Stein said.
That’s the idea behind a new campaign called “Booze Less Summit,” where even in a resort community where there’s a culture of alcohol and one of the nation’s highest rates of binge drinking, Building Hope Summit Executive Director Kellyn Ender says they are working to encourage people to drink more responsibly.
“One of the things we wanted to focus on was looking at what you can do when you’re drinking a little less,” Ender said. “Maybe not having that last cocktail or having water in between or enjoying mocktails instead of cocktails.”
The idea is that people can enjoy more of Colorado and Summit County is they don’t overdo it in bars.
“We hear all the time from folks that they end up sleeping away the day because they are hungover from the night before and they don’t enjoy why we live here," Ender said.
Building Hope says there’s a push for more non-alcohol options with 82% of patrons requesting non-alcohol options and 50% of adults ages 18 to 25 looking to decrease their drinking.
“I think that is something that is happening in the young culture.” Ender said. “They are creating this identity for themselves of exploring sober curious, and sober nights and sober January.”
You can learn more about Booze Less Summit at their website.
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