The Top 18 Beverage Trends of 2025

Hard seltzers continue to climb

The folks behind White Claw, the original famous hard seltzer brand, recognized that success rested on the growing health-conscious trend, so they targeted consumers in situations where health and fitness were top-of-mind. For example, they sponsored Spotify workout playlists and Snapchat geofilters targeted at gyms nationwide.

Hard seltzer has seen tremendous growth as a perfect substitute in social contexts where consumers already have well-established behaviors, especially among Gen Z beverage trends that favor lighter, health-conscious options. As we've seen countless times with other trends like sober bars, these near-perfect substitutes are necessary for consumer behavior to shift.

Functional beverages

People aren’t just cutting back on alcohol or caffeine—they’re replacing them with something more intentional.

Functional beverages—infused with CBD, THC, adaptogens, or nootropics—are increasingly being used to manage energy, stress, and focus on demand. The appeal isn’t just the ingredients; it’s the promise of control. Unlike coffee’s crash or alcohol’s hangover, these drinks are marketed as tools for fine-tuning how you feel—calm, sharp, balanced.

Wearables, one of the largest wellness trends, have played a quiet but crucial role. Devices like Oura and WHOOP have made sleep disruptors visible—late-night cocktails and afternoon espressos are no longer abstract culprits but data-backed mistakes. This visibility has opened the door for functional drinks to move from niche to normalized.

And it’s not just solo use. Functional drinks are becoming part of social rituals, especially among Gen Z, where 4 in 10 now avoid alcohol entirely. Brands have responded by designing beverages that look like canned cocktails but offer clarity instead of intoxication.

What began as a wellness adjacent category is now reshaping the beverage aisle. These drinks aren’t about indulgence or escape—they’re about small, strategic shifts in how we feel, perform, and recover.

Rise in functional drinks as energy boosters

The functional drinks industry began to take off in the 1980s with Red Bull, which was cleverly marketed for white-collar workers. Functional drinks are now marketed as alternatives to traditional energy boosters like coffee and soda, featuring ingredients like probiotics, adaptogens, nootropics, and CBD—hallmarks of today’s functional beverage trends.

Dairy alternatives expand

Most people aren’t quitting milk—they’re diversifying it.

Oat, almond, pistachio, macadamia. Milk alternatives have exploded not because of a mass exodus from dairy, but because consumers want more ways to personalize what goes into their coffee, cereal, and smoothies. In fact, 9 in 10 plant-milk buyers still drink traditional dairy. This isn’t rejection—it’s rotation.

Part of the shift is health-related, or at least perceived to be: 32% of Americans say they have food allergies or intolerances. Whether clinically diagnosed or self-assumed, that belief is enough to drive behavior. Dairy, often seen as inflammatory or hard to digest, has become a common swap target—even for people who don’t strictly need to avoid it.

Meanwhile, milk’s cultural role has changed. As cereal declines and coffee rises, alternative milks have found a new home in cafes—where baristas use them as a canvas for differentiation. Pistachio lattes and oat milk foam aren’t just functional; they’re flavor-forward, aesthetic, and on-trend.

And there’s a logistics layer, too. Many alt-milks are shelf-stable before opening, making them ideal for e-commerce. Almond milk, for example, is 98% water—so shipping a shelf-stable concentrate makes more sense than refrigerating the full blend.

In the end, this trend isn’t about removing something. It’s about expanding the toolkit. Consumers aren’t just buying milk—they’re curating it.

Glass straws, not paper straws, are on the rise

Drinking straws first became popular in the early twentieth century as a way to improve hygiene, as public drinking cups were widely used at the time and could easily spread disease. Disposable cups were too expensive so straws were a safe and low-cost alternative.

Even as the hygiene factor became less relevant, straws remained ubiquitous. It was the 2001 introduction of in-home teeth whitening kits that accelerated awareness of tooth stains from coffee and wine, for example. Today, many consumers report feeling less at risk of tooth stains when drinking through a straw and many dental offices encourage clients, from the office, and on their websites, to use straws. The rise of drive-throughs also contributed to the widespread use of straws, as customers can more easily sip their drinks while driving.

Plastic straw bans became popular in 2018, and several replacements have since popped up. Restaurants often use paper straws, which are unpopular because they get soggy. At home, some consumers switched to metal straws, which could be reused.

Now, there’s a shift from metal straws to glass straws, a move that reflects how new beverage trends are shaping consumer habits beyond the drink itself.

While glass and metal straws are equally hard to clean, it's harder to visually confirm that a metal straw is clean. Metal straws were originally sold as standalone products, but most now include pipe cleaners. It’s still hard to visually confirm that they’re clean though, and some users complain about the metallic taste. In 2020, "glass straw" surpassed "metal straw," in search and online discussion volume, and has since risen up to nearly 3x the search volume.

Legacy water brands finally see competition

64% of bottled water is just tap water in a plastic bottle, but priced roughly 2,000 times higher. One driver of this cost gap is convenience, since bottled water is more portable than a cup and can be purchased outside the home.

But an important contributor to the price difference is marketing. It’s hard to imagine a more competitive industry than bottled water. Companies in this space are not only competing against brands owned by the behemoths Coca Cola (Dasani, Smartwater, etc.) and Pepsi (Aquafina) - but they also compete against essentially free tap water.

Liquid Death, a growing brand of canned water was founded by a former Netflix advertising executive. Liquid Death’s aesthetic is heavily influenced by punk rock—they've produced two albums of death metal songs based on negative reviews of their product (the album, "Greatest Hates," includes tracks like "I Thought This Was Alcohol" and "Definitely Not Buying", all available on Spotify). The fact that it comes in a can means it's especially popular as a non-alcoholic drink that can be consumed in an alcohol-dominant setting. Non-alcoholic drinks are one of the top health & wellness trends, but there’s still often a social stigma to not drinking alcohol in social situations, and Liquid Death sells a way around this. In fact, the company sells through beer distributors to cover this exact use case.

The brand also leans into the environmental issues surrounding the water bottle industry. Aluminum is a heavily recycled material. In fact, nearly 75% of all aluminum ever made is still in use, having been continuously recycled, sometimes thousands of times. Plastic bottles, on the other hand, are typically not worth the cost to recycle so they often get dumped in landfills even if they're marked as recyclable. And as the plastic industry has grown, plastic has gotten more efficient and lower priced, making it even harder for recycled plastic to compete with fresh plastic.

Canned beverages emerge as an alternative to traditional containers

From water to wine, canned beverages are gaining popularity as consumers seek convenient, sustainable alternatives to traditional plastic and glass packaging.

Glass bottles offer a luxurious drinking experience, especially for beverages like wine, but they pose a risk of breaking, which makes them unsuitable for many outdoor environments. Plastic containers, meanwhile, lack a premium feel and raise concerns about microplastic contamination—a growing worry among consumers.

Cans address both issues effectively. They’re lightweight, portable, and durable, making them ideal for outdoor events such as picnics or concerts. For wine drinkers, cans often come in smaller serving sizes, allowing consumers to enjoy just a single glass without needing to open an entire bottle.

The rise of canned beverages is also driven by the increase in camping & hiking, a key activities trend.