Alcohol-free Pimm's? Wimbledon fans think drink would be a winner

Times

10-07-2025

The US Open has the honey deuce, the Australian Open the lemon ace and Roland Garros is sponsored by Moet & Chandon, but no tennis grand slam has a signature drink as popular as Pimm's at Wimbledon.
Spectators buy nearly 300,000 glasses over two weeks but this year have been asking for an alternative.
'I'd say around one in 50 people ask if there's a non-alcoholic version of Pimm's,' a barmaid at the Pimm's stall on Henman Hill said. 'I worked here last year and people were asking the same thing.'
She added that the question usually came from young people or pregnant women.
Even before noon, fans on the Hill were watching the tennis with a Pimm's in their hand. Georgia McCarthy, 33, from Essex, said she would have preferred something non-alcoholic but added: 'Pimm's is something you associate with Wimbledon. It's our first time here and when we arrived we thought we had to go in, get the Pimm's and get the strawberries.'
Destiny Olusegun, 22, a bar manager, said customers asked for a non-alcoholic drink that resembled Pimm's on a regular basis. 'People are shifting away from alcohol, people are more conscious of what they're drinking, how they're drinking,' he said, adding that demand for alcohol-free drinks had grown in his three years at Wimbledon.
'Especially if you're going to be here all day, you don't want to be drinking 20 pints the whole day, but you may still like a drink and be able to engage in the same social culture, be able to cheers your beer, have something cold.
'Having a non-alcoholic Pimm's option, even if it was just in a can, would still give people that feeling of being included.'
Pimm's does not sell a non-alcoholic version, but a spokeswoman said: 'We're always working on new ideas across all of our brands, and when we have new products to announce consumers will be the first to hear.'
Charlie Cook, business director of food and drink at Wimbledon, said there had 'definitely been a move' towards more non-alcoholic drinks on offer, although he had not seen a reduction in alcohol sales.
He said supply decisions were influenced by trends as well as data from the other grand slam tournaments.
Cook said the club tried to stock an alcohol-free alternative in each drinks category and had experimented with fruity mocktail recipes to meet demand for an alternative to Pimm's.
'We've tried a version using balsamic, which has a quite similar flavour profile, but we haven't really cracked that one yet,' he said. 'It would be a good one though.'
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The recipe for Pimm's is closely guarded. Tom Bronock, founder of the creative drinks agency Wilde Toast, said: 'It's obviously a secret recipe Pimm's. It's what's called a compound liquor, meaning there's a base spirit, then there's a secret blend of botanicals, bitters, some spices, herbs, things like fruit extracts that go into it. So it's the sum of its parts, it's very hard to recreate'.
Bars at Wimbledon sell Stella Artois 0.0; Freeglider, an alcohol-free spirit; Everleaf, an alcohol-free aperitif; and Wild Idol, an alcohol-free wine. Sipsmith said Freeglider sales at the tournament last year were up about 25 per cent compared with 2022.
Stella Artois launched its alcohol-free beer on draught at the tournament before rolling it out to the rest of the UK. A barman at the Perfect Serve bar said that on one day they sold nearly 200 pints.
Not all visitors were converted to alcohol-free drinks, however, particularly by the prices. Sam Bushby, 28, from Essex, said: 'If I'm going to pay for a drink then I want to have a proper drink, otherwise I would just have an orange juice or a lemonade. It's just a waste of money otherwise.'