How non-alcoholic spirits are made

How are non-alcoholic spirits made?

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Non-alcoholic spirits are, in terms of how they are produced, a far cry from the alcoholic versionNon-alcoholic spirits are a small but growing part of the non-alcoholic market. Unlike non-alcoholic beer and wine, they are replacing something with an ABV of 40% and a taste which owes a lot to alcohol itself.

Consumers are drawn to non-alcoholic drinks by flavour, health and a desire to fit in.

But how do brands replicate a drink that owes so much to alcohol itself?

Extraction or creation?First thing’s first: when non-alcoholic spirits are made, are they made through extracting the alcohol from actual spirits, or created from scratch?

In the case of Lyre’s, the answer is definitively the latter.

The brand uses other ingredients to replicate the taste of the spirits it is replacing. For example, it combines flavours like lemon and lime with sugar in order to provide comparable tastes to the alcoholic versions.

Also read → Why consumers want non-alcoholic spirits“You want to have all the flavours that you have in the in the one that is iconic‚” explains Benedicta Tornieri, marketing manager for Europe, the UK and the Middle East at Lyre’s.

The aim of such flavour combinations is to “try to make the flavour pop out.”

Do they use techniques from alcohol? Non-alcoholic spirits may not actually contain alcohol, but they do use techniques from the alcohol industry.

Major brand Seedlip creates its product in a similar way. The liquid, according to the brand, takes six weeks to make and is produced from peels, barks, herbs and spices, which are sourced by working closely with farmers.

Each ingredient is distilled through copper pot distillation, a technique that is also used to make gin.

Production also involves maceration, a soaking process used in winemaking, and filtration, a key part of the production of spirits. It is eventually blended and bottled in England.

The brand Almave also uses techniques from the alcohol industry. Founded by UK Formula One driver Sir Lewis Hamilton, the brand uses techniques from tequila making.

The drink is distilled several times to bring out the flavours, for example. Unlike in the traditional tequila production process, the drink is not fermented – Almave skips the fermentation process and goes straight to distillation.