Gen Z is abandoning the optimised life for analog maxxing?
For most of the last decade Gen Z has been defined as the sober generation. The kids who grew up with a phone practically welded to their palm looked at a beer and saw pointless empty calories, sub optimal sleep, and a hangover that would tank their Whoop score. They ordered the mocktail. They tracked their REM cycles. They turned "I don't drink" into a personality and a market: non-alcoholic spirits, adaptogenic seltzers, the whole sober-curious industrial complex. The frontier, we were told, was wellness. The future was clean.
Except the numbers have started to buck this trend.
The reversal in the numbers
IWSR, the drinks-industry research firm that tracks consumer behavior across fifteen major markets, has been watching the "Gen Z doesn't drink" narrative fall apart in real time. Their Bevtrac tracker shows alcohol participation among legal-drinking-age Gen Z adults climbing from 66% in April 2023 to 73% by March 2025. In the United States the jump is even sharper — from 46% to 70% over the same window. Their most recent read puts the Gen Z drinking rate at 74%, up eight percentage points in three years.
That still sits below Millennials (81%) and Gen X (77%), but it now runs above Baby Boomers (71%) — the generation that spent the pandemic drinking at home and is only now easing off. The "sober generation" is out-drinking the boomers and closing the gap on everyone else.
They're not doing it timidly, either. 84% of Gen Z drinkers reported having a cocktail in the past six months, more than any other generation, and they're going out more, spending more, and moving across categories as they go. As IWSR's Richard Halstead put it, the increase "challenges the received wisdom that this generation is 'abandoning' alcohol."
The caveat worth keeping honest: consumption per occasion is still drifting down, from 4.4 drinks to 3.9. This isn't a swing back to binge culture. More young people are drinking, but the ritual has changed — looser, more social, less about getting wrecked. They're not drinking to escape so much as to be somewhere, with people, off the clock.
Out in the parking lot
Now look at what they want to drive.
One number does most of the work here: in a Hagerty/OnePoll survey of more than 2,000 Americans, 60% of Gen Z said they'd like to own a classic car, versus just 31% of Baby Boomers. Nearly double the appetite of the generation that supposedly is classic-car culture. Sean Tucker, writing it up for Kelley Blue Book, put it plainly: the next generation of car enthusiasts is here, and it skews young. Thirty-two percent of Gen Z already own or have owned an enthusiast vehicle, and 77% say they love or like driving. So much for the disengaged, ride-share-everything cohort.
The kind of car they reach for tells the rest of it. While the industry chases Gen Z with 15-inch touchscreens, over-the-air updates, and heated seats you unlock with a monthly subscription, young enthusiasts are heading the other way. Hagerty's insurance-quote data shows them gravitating toward cheap, compact, analog machines: the Honda Beat, a Kei-car you can find under $4,000. The Acura RSX. The Chevy Cobalt SS. The Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI. Three of their five most-wanted cars are Japan-only models that have to be imported individually under the 25-year rule — which means these kids are filing paperwork to ship in a manual coupe older than they are.
Priced out of new cars (34% of Gen Z say they simply can't afford the car they want), young buyers are entering through the used lot — older models, smaller trims, fewer screens. The car press has noticed the broader appetite too: 2026 is full of listicles about "the best cars for people who hate touchscreens," because a real market now hates touchscreens.
A car with a key you turn, a gearbox you row yourself, and a dashboard of physical buttons is not the efficient choice. It breaks, it's slower, it has no lane-keep assist — and that's the appeal. It asks something of you and hands something back.
A cultural shift or just a revert to the mean?
These two stories belong under the same heading.
Drinking and driving stick-shifts from 2003 look unrelated until you notice what they share: both are friction the optimised life was supposed to eliminate. The last fifteen years sold Gen Z a specific promise, that a good life is an optimised one. Track the sleep, skip the drink, automate the commute, let the software update itself. Outsource the friction and you'll be healthier, safer, more productive, more legible.
What we're watching now is the first cohort raised entirely inside that promise deciding, at the margin, that it's hollow. The mocktail optimizes the night into nothing. The software-defined car turns driving into scrolling with a steering wheel. The perfectly quantified life feels like being managed by a spreadsheet you didn't write.
So they're reaching back for the analog. Not for nostalgia as most of them never lived through it -- but a pull toward things that are unoptimised with purpose. A real drink and a mechanical car share something a wellness app and a subscription SUV can't fake: they're inefficient, a little risky, and entirely yours.
The sober, optimised generation is coming of age, and the first thing they're doing with the freedom is pouring a drink and buying a car with a check-engine light and embracing the analog. Time to read some some Bukowski.
For those interested in the subject, read our our other article on Why Is Gen Z Logging Off ? https://x.com/loonshotbrief/status/2079877756356042845?s=20
Sources
- IWSR — "Don't blame Gen Z: as challenges persist, younger legal-drinking-age consumers are re-engaging with alcohol" (Bevtrac tracker, participation 66% → 73%, 2023–2025)
- VinePair — "Report: Gen Z Drinking Rate Increases to 74%, While Boomers Drive Overall Decline" (generational breakdown; 84% cocktail figure)
- IWSR — "Increased Gen Z drinking sustained, Boomers drinking moderates" (press release)
- Kelley Blue Book / Sean Tucker — "Study: Gen Z Loves Classic Cars More Than Boomers" (Hagerty/OnePoll survey: 60% Gen Z vs 31% Boomers, Aug 2024)
- Hagerty Media — "The 5 Most Popular Cars Among Gen Z Enthusiasts" (insurance-quote data on JDM/analog picks)
Further reading
- Fortune / AOL — "After popularizing 'sober curious' culture, Gen Z is boosting its booze intake in line with other generations"
- Newsweek — "Gen Z Is Drinking More Alcohol"
- The Autopian — "You'll Never Guess The Cars That Gen Z Car Enthusiasts Keep Buying"
- Motor Authority — "Survey says: Millennials and Gen Z care about classic cars after all"
- Quartz — "The best new cars for drivers who hate touchscreens in 2026"
- Edmunds — "Low-Tech Cars: Can You Buy a Basic Car in 2026?"
