5 Food and Drink Trends for 2025

It’s time for a bit of a restock for the new year. Here’s what we’re craving headed into 2025, and we think there’s something in here for you, too. Keep an eye out for these Food and Drink Trends, or try one for yourself!

Alcohol-Free Canned Cocktails

We’ve been seeing a wider range of canned cocktails, CBD cocktails, and mixed drinks on offer across the board. That, and the quality of these drinks has improved, to the point where you can sip on a pre-mixed canned coconut margarita with little to no personal effort. For 2025, expect to see the zero-proof movement tap into the canned cocktail market. Some might ask, “isn’t that just juice?” But for these non-alcoholic canned cocktails, the key will be a more curated flavor, and a bit of branding magic.  If the industry can just think of a more jazzy name for sobriety, they might manage to create the next Liquid Death. 

We personally recommend the canned offerings from Busty Lush, which is a popular option stocked at Orangily. Their women inspired cocktails offer everything from sweet to stout, making for plenty of room for exploration. Goose the Market also stocks several Alcohol-Free options on a rotating basis.

Tasting Menus

Eating out is offering a bit of a sticking point for the general public as creativity lends itself to problem solving. Inflation, especially for food, has in recent years made pocket books a bit tight for a multi-course night out. But chefs in and around Indy are increasingly creating opportunities to turn a dinner date into an entire evening out, by setting a fixed price upfront that includes multiple courses and an overall story and vision. For the same price as an appetizer and entree, you can enjoy four to six courses at restaurants like Vida, Provision, and Beholder. This offers the option to not only taste a variety of food across the menu, but also to sample options exclusive to that tasting menu (like the sticky fig pudding at Beholder, which isn’t present on their a la carte dessert list). In 2025, not only will we see more Tasting Menus, we’ll see them become more accessible to the everyman, not just the luxurious fine-diner.

European Influences Coming to Indy

With a direct flight to Dublin opening up for Indianapolis in May, European summer just became a lot easier for Hoosiers (about four hours and a layover easier, to be exact). Because of the growing tourism from Indianapolis to Europe, we’ll likely see an expanded palette as foodie travellers bring their new favorite food and drink home with them. The Guinness shortage may well spread to North America by this time next year.

Garden Greens

The common starter greens in the garden, your standard tomato, basil, pepper, aren’t going anywhere.  But it’s time we expand the backyard palette a little to suit the everyday diet. For this summer, be thinking about the food you consistently crave all year long. What can come from the garden? Locally-sourced and home-grown produce are consistently growing in popularity, especially in the midwest, but this just might be the year we see the verdant garden box really take off for the first time this millennium.

Say Hello to Sours

It was a quiet year for new cocktail trends following negroni sbaggliatto’s meteoric rise from obscurity to the it-girl of the year. We’ve since seen Aperol Spritz and Espresso Martinis really take to drinks menus the world over, but nothing at the scale of previous cocktail trends. That said, nearly every cocktail menu has some variation of a sour on their menu– pisco, amaretto, whisky sour, midori sour, even the occasional Last Word (those who know, know.) The cocktail of 2025 will be one of these. For a local sampling, we like the Commodore in Fountain Square, Thieves in Broad Ripple, or the Fountain Room on Mass Ave.

It’s hard to say how food trends will change in the new year, but we’re already off to a pretty good start. Let us know what you’re craving for 2025– connect with us on Instagram or Facebook.