By the time Tori Guido finished her first “Dry January” in 2023, she realized she didn’t even enjoy drinking anymore. Her mental and physical health had vastly improved, especially since working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic had led to drink more in the past few years.
“It was like, ‘Oh, I’m at home working. I can just crack open a beer right at 5 [o’clock].’” she remembers. “I felt like I needed a reset… I drank on New Year’s Eve and it wasn’t even fun. I’m going to be hungover tomorrow and for what? To not be fully present? I want to be present for important moments. I don’t need to celebrate necessarily with alcohol.”
So when Guido’s friend Elizabeth Gascoigne founded the sober party pop-up Absence of Proof in New York, she knew she had to convince her to bring it to Detroit too.
The pop-up launched in New York in 2022 and spread to Detroit and other cities in April of 2023. The first Detroit event was a night of bottomless mocktails and low-ABV drinks at the Congregation. It was like going to the bar with friends for a night out, where people could mingle and actually remember everything the next day.
Guido and Gascoigne were once roommates when she lived in Seattle. The founder has ties to Detroit (her family has a lake house in Adrian that she visits in the summer), so Guido thought the Motor City would be a good addition to Absence of Proof. Turns out she was right, as she says Detroit has grown to be the event’s most successful city outside of New York.
“We really just started in, like, coffee shops, kind of like we did in Detroit where we popped up in the Congregation… and it just had a bigger response than [Gascoigne] was ever initially expecting,” Guido says. “Our socials kind of started blowing up and people were asking for this in other cities. Our largest activations are in Detroit. People are craving the space.”
The pop-up hosts monthly events in different venues in Detroit and while some have a party vibe, many Absence of Proof events incorporate wellness activities like yoga and meditation. Past events have seen Absence of Proof Detroit host a sober Halloween party at SPKRBOX, a sauna day at the Schvitz, and a Red Bull Unlocked pre-party at the Skip.
Its Moodmoves mixer at the Detroit Foundation Hotel on January 20 included a City Glow Yoga silent disco class, ecstatic dance, brunch-themed mocktails, reiki, massage, and pop-ups by local brands like Culture Juices and Flowers for Dreams. The bar served beer-mosas with N/A beer, bloody marys with N/A tequila, and espresso martins with N/A gin.
She says people, like her, are “rethinking their relationship with alcohol” even if they aren’t fully sober.
“We’re not saying people should, you know, stop drinking alcohol entirely,” she says. “We want to create an inclusive space for people who are rethinking or just want to take the night off… essentially trying to create social spaces and connection without alcohol.”
Guido is Absence of Proof’s Chief Administrative Officer, but she started as the coordinator for Detroit since she lives in the metro area. She says the events serve as a place for people who are curious to learn about nonalcoholic brands like Curious Elixirs, Tost, and Ritual Zero Proof, which aren’t always available at bars and clubs.
“So many bars and restaurants don’t have great nonalcoholic options. It’s thrown together, like pineapple juice and maybe seltzer and you throw a cherry on top,” she says. “Or maybe even worse than that, you just have a Mexican coke.”
While there are local shops like Marcus Market in midtown and West Village’s Metropolitan Variety Store that sell N/A beverages, many people aren’t willing to spend $30 on a bottle of alcohol-free gin or wine without trying it first.
“It can be hard to wrap your head around, so at our events we put together a very large non-alcoholic menu and it’s unlimited drinks and you get to try them all,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be this thing where it’s for lack of a better word, ‘lame.’ It can be cool to not drink. There are so many options.”
Guido notes that while she isn’t fully sober, she only had about 10 drinks last year. However, Absence of Proof is mindful of people who are recovering from alcohol addiction and offers both drinks that mimic the taste of alcohol and options that don’t.
“We’ve gotten a lot of feedback and we always try to have at least a few options that don’t have the spirits in them because we’ve realized that there are going to be people who could be triggered,” she says. “We also try to make it very transparent on our menu so that people can make the right decisions for themselves and where they’re at in their sobriety journey.”
While nothing has been set in stone yet, Guido says Absence of Proof has been in talks with local restaurants and bars like Marrow, Bar Pigalle, and Ladder 4 Wine Bar about building permanent N/A menus.
Absence of Proof currently operates out of Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Washington D.C., Nashville, Austin, and Connecticut. For more information, see absenceofproof.com.
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