How Raising the Bar’s Subscription Model Drives ANA Discovery

The adult non-alcoholic beverage category has hundreds of NA spirits and ready-to-drink cocktails but for curious consumers, knowing where to start can feel overwhelming. Abbie Romanul, Founder and CEO of Raising the Bar, decided to solve this problem by building a subscription box that turns overwhelm into monthly discovery, and after five and a half years, the data shows it’s working.

Raising the Bar is a monthly ANA cocktail subscription box that sends subscribers everything they need – ingredients, tools, and recipes – to make three different cocktails with ten or more servings. Ninety percent of subscribers are trying the featured products for the first time, and 80% go on to purchase a product from that month’s box afterward. Those numbers tell a clear story about what guided discovery can do in a category where consumer interest often outpaces consumer confidence.

Solving the “I Don’t Know Where to Start” Problem

“There’s this element of, wow, there’s a lot going on here, and it can feel really hard to see all these emerging brands and products and know where to begin,” Romanul told me during our conversation. “A lot of people, myself included, came to the space being like, I’m interested, but I don’t know where to start.”

That feeling of being stuck at the entrance of the category can be common. The ANA category includes a wide variety of spirits (analog and non-analog), ready-to-drink cocktails, as well as functional beverages – each with different use cases, flavor profiles, and preparation methods. For someone exploring for the first time, the sheer variety can become a reason to delay rather than dive in.

Romanul experienced this firsthand. After quitting drinking, she wanted to keep the ritual and creativity of a good cocktail but found no easy way to navigate the emerging landscape. “I was essentially looking for something like Raising the Bar,” she explained, “and when it didn’t exist, I decided to create it myself.”

Why Monthly Cadence Matters for Category Entry

The subscription format wasn’t an accident. Romanul recognized early on that discovery in the ANA space isn’t a one-time event – it’s an ongoing process. With new brands and product formats launching regularly, a monthly cadence gives consumers a structured way to keep exploring without the financial risk of committing to full-size purchases they haven’t tried.

“I knew I would want to, as a customer, explore new things every month,” she said. “What we offer is that ability to sample, and people can discover what they love.”

Each box follows a deliberate format: two cocktail recipes built around a hero product – like a spirit alternative, shrub, or concentrate – plus a ready-to-drink option. The structure gives subscribers multiple ways to experience a product. A recent box, for example, featured an espresso martini RTD both as a standalone drink and as the base for a mixed cocktail with blood orange soda, showing subscribers how a single product can work across different occasions and serve as a starting point for their own experimentation.

“A lot of these products can feel very niche,” Romanul noted, “and if they’re not learning how to use it beyond the recommendation, it’s going to be sitting there collecting dust. So we want to encourage that exploration and creativity.”

Bridging the Gap Between Awareness and Trial

One of the most telling insights from Raising the Bar’s subscriber data is that 90% of customers are trying featured products for the first time – even though many have already heard of the brands. That gap between awareness and physical trial is one of the category’s most persistent challenges, and it highlights why discovery infrastructure matters as much as brand marketing.

“We’re online, and we see these things,” Romanul said. “We can see products and brands that resonate with us, but until you actually get to try it, and try it in the context of a recipe, it’s really hard to know what you’ll love.”

The subscription model bridges that gap by putting physical products directly into consumers’ hands, in a context designed to create a positive first experience. And because each box pairs complementary products with tested recipes, subscribers aren’t just sampling – they’re building familiarity with how ANA products work in practice.

What Curated Discovery Creates for the Category

For the broader ANA ecosystem, a model like Raising the Bar’s does something that traditional retail and online shopping struggle to replicate at scale: it creates guided first experiences. When a consumer opens a subscription box that feels intentional and considered – complete with recipes, context, and complementary products – it sets a very different tone than picking a single bottle off a shelf with no instructions.

“When you open it up, it feels like a gift,” Romanul shared. “You want to feel considered, intentional, thought of, and I think that’s what these boxes do. They provide that elevated experience.”

That emotional quality of the discovery experience matters. The 80% repurchase rate suggests that when consumers have a well-guided first encounter with ANA products, they’re far more likely to become repeat buyers – which benefits not just Raising the Bar, but every brand featured in a box and the retailers where those consumers eventually shop.

Building the Discovery Layer the Category Needs

As the adult non-alcoholic beverage space continues to expand, the challenge isn’t just creating great products – it’s making sure consumers can find, try, and enjoy them. Raising the Bar has spent five and a half years building a discovery layer that sits between brand awareness and consumer adoption, giving people a low-risk, high-quality way to enter the category on their own terms.

“Taste is subjective,” Romanul said. “We’re gonna give you a really well-thought-out, curated experience, and then from there, you can take what works for you and add that to your rotation.”

With thousands of subscribers receiving boxes each month, the subscription model is proving that the ANA category’s growth doesn’t just depend on more products – it depends on more pathways for consumers to discover them.