A guide to promote mindful drinking in Hackney and the City has been launched in collaboration with a London-based charity.
Club Soda was founded in January 2015 to help those who wanted to change their drinking habits but didn’t think they needed to belong to an Alcoholics Anonymous group. The organisation, funded by Hackney Council and the City of London, launched project Club Soda Guide in October in the Hackney area, in collaboration with drug and alcohol charity Blenheim.
“We’ve added all the local pubs and bars to the website with some basic details about them and we’ve invited the venues to add more details about themselves, add some nice photos and complete the ‘Club Soda Score’ which gives them a score out of 5 on their low and no alcohol drinks selection,” explains Jussi Tolvi, co-founder of the Club.
A big campaign has been planned for January 2017. The Club will be inviting local residents, sports teams, workplaces, and all kinds of groups and organisations to get together for “mindful pub crawls”: visiting their local pubs and bars, trying out the low and non-alcohol drinks, and then rating and reviewing the venues on the Guide website.
Muireach Shankey, manager at the Hector & Noble in Victoria (one of the five pubs on the map from the same ward) said: “This is a great idea and a good opportunity for us, not only to spread the word about mindful drinking, but also to promote the idea that non-alcohol drinkers are always welcome in bars and pubs!”
More than a hundred venues are already on the map and keen to participate in the project.
