As we come to the end of national Diabetes Week, we spoke to Mel Sims about her drink Mooze Booze, which at a modest 0.3 alcoholic units, sells itself as a perfect option for diabetics to drink.
In 2021, more than 4.9 million people in the UK are now living with diabetes, with 13.6 million at an increased risk of contracting the Type 2 strain of the disease. Yet despite the growing amounts of people developing this illness, the amount of safe drinks available on the market right now is severely limited.
Advice from the charity website Diabetes UK doesn’t exactly encourage you to enjoy a cheeky tipple if you have the disease: “Drinking can make you more likely to have a hypo [when the body’s sugar levels go too low], because alcohol interferes with your blood sugar levels. It can affect your weight too, as there can be a lot of calories in alcoholic drinks.” Over the past year however, Mel Sims, 48 from Essex took on the challenge of launching a low-alcohol, diabetic-friendly drink – Mooze Booze – that’s also a lot healthier for everyone to have on a more regular basis.
“I don’t think it’s that you shouldn’t have to drink ever again with diabetes from what I read,” she says. So far, Mel has received a range of positive feedback, including from diabetics like London-based Russ. “My doctor said I was in a danger zone if I kept making my liver work so hard and drinking so much sugar,” he says. “Having seen an advert, I swapped to G&T’s with Mooze 12% and feel healthier and lighter.”
Mel believes Mooze Booze is filling a major gap in the market; a need that isn’t being met. “There’s only sugary drinks available in the main supermarkets at the moment, and we alway talk about how overweight the UK is,” she says.
While the amount of non-alcoholic beers being drunk has surged by 58% in the past year, Mel notes that not enough consideration is being given to consumers who don’t like beer. “Not to be sexist, but not everyone drinks beer, and yet here again all the men are catered for, and there’s nothing for those of us who want something else,” she says.
One issue which makes low-alcoholic drinks inaccessible to all is their price point. At the minute Mooze Booze’s 70cl bottle of gin costs £27, which isn’t an affordable price for everyone if they’re looking to treat themselves to a low-unit drink regularly. “The reason why low alcohol drinks are more expensive, which seems to be a very big obstacle, is because you’re buying into a lifestyle,” says Mel. However, she does think that it is likely that the high price will change in the future. “I see the low-alcohol market as the vegan market,” she says. “We all said five years ago that it wouldn’t boom and then look how it did! The non-alcoholic market is expected to turn over five million in the next year.”
Mel tells us that Mooze Booze are currently in the process of creating more low-alcohol alternatives like elderflower champagne, and a prosecco. “They’re all a third of the regular alcohol level. So you can still have an amazing party without a hangover, and without damaging your body,” she says. “The whole point of drinking is about socializing at the end of a hard day, this needs to be accessible to everyone,” she says.
As we slowly head back to some sense of normality in pubs, bars and restaurants, Mel says that a wide range of low alcohol alternatives must be sought out. “If the hospitality industry really wants to get people back in, it’s got to have drinks suitable for diabetics and suitable for drivers,” she says. “They’ve got to stop being so old-fashioned about it.”
Find out more about Mooze Booze on their website, or Twitter.