How Non-Alcoholic Spirits Are Made
Every bottle in the Sober Spirits range begins as a real spirit. A rum from the French Caribbean, out of the still at 70% ABV. A French gin. A Scottish whisky, three years in oak casks. The alcohol is then extracted in Grasse, and the aromatic matter that stays behind is redistilled in a French distillery that has been working since 1875.
It took two years of research and several hundred distillation runs to make that sentence true. This page tells you how it is done, step by step, and why the law will not let us call the result what you probably typed into Google.
The short version
- Start with a real spirit. Distilled conventionally, at full strength, by producers who have done it for generations.
- Extract the alcohol. In Grasse, the world capital of perfumery, heat, pressure and thermal shocks separate the aromatic compounds from the pure ethanol.
- Rebuild the body. Infusions, macerations and complementary distillations of plants, barks and fruits restore intensity and length.
- Redistil in copper. Stills more than a hundred years old, in a distillery founded in 1875 at the foot of the Alps.
- Taste, adjust, repeat. Every batch is nosed and tasted against the reference before it is bottled at 0.0% ABV.
A distillery at the foot of the Alps, at work since 1875
The range is produced in the heart of France, at the beginning of the Alps, in a region that has distilled spirits for as long as anyone has kept records. Our partner distillery was built in 1875. Its red brick walls have seen a century and a half of French spirits pass through, and the techniques kept inside it are the reason the process below is possible at all.
Working there means we did not have to invent distillation. We only had to invent what to do after it.
It started in a kitchen
Calixte, our founder, began with a world tour of spirits. Distillery visits, tastings, notes, until he had a complete map of the aromas and textures he wanted to find again in a glass at 0.0% ABV.
Then he bought a small still and learned the craft from the ground up, at home. Pipettes, syringes, scales, a long list of plants and spices to macerate, taste and compare. One objective, held from the first day: the best thing you can pour into a cocktail when there is no alcohol in it.
Why we start with a real spirit
The founding principle
If we want to make real alternatives to spirits, why not start with real spirits?Calixte, founder of Sober Spirits
Most drinks in this category are assembled from water, flavourings and a little sugar. They imitate a memory. We took the longer road, and it is the single decision that shapes everything you taste.
Take the R 0.0%. It begins as a real rum from the French Caribbean, distilled conventionally and leaving the still at 70% ABV. That rum travels to Grasse, in the south of France, where the extraction takes place.
Extraction: splitting taste from ethanol
Extraction separates the elements that make up a spirit once it has been distilled. Heat, a system of pressure and a series of thermal shocks pull the two apart: the aromatic fraction on one side, which we keep and which becomes the Sober Spirits range, and pure ethanol on the other, which is recycled into the fine perfumery industry that Grasse has supplied for three hundred years.
The technique is slow and expensive. The share of the original liquid that survives it and matters to us is small, which is why a bottle of Sober Spirits costs what it costs. Nothing about this process is cheap, and nothing about it can be rushed.
Rebuilding the body
Extraction alone gives a convincing aroma and a thin body. Alcohol carries weight, heat and length, and when it leaves, it takes them with it. So we put them back another way.
Depending on the product, the extracted base is completed with infusions, macerations and complementary distillations: plants, barks, roots and fruits chosen for what they add. Juniper and coriander sharpen the G 0.0%. Toasted oak, caramel and cocoa give the W 0.0% its roundness. Bitter almond and caramelised hazelnut carry the Amaretto 0.0%. Blood orange, gentian and rhubarb build the Aperitivo Spritz 0.0%.
Two years of R&D, several hundred distillation trials and a set of extraction techniques we had to adapt ourselves stand behind that paragraph.
From the bench to the batch
A recipe that works on a kitchen table does not survive contact with a production still on its own. Turning one into the other took dozens of full scale trials.
Our master distiller now produces the entire range through a process that runs over several days and calls on close to half a dozen different techniques, the two principal ones being alcohol extraction and distillation in copper stills over a century old. Control of timings, of heating temperatures and of raw material sourcing is what lets us take each botanical as far as it will go. It is also, in one sentence, the difference between a Sober Spirits bottle and a flavoured water.
Two minutes inside the distillery
What the law lets us call these bottles
Search for non-alcoholic rum, alcohol-free gin or non-alcoholic whiskey and you will find plenty of brands using those words on the front of a label. We do not use them, and the reason is regulation (EU) 2019/787.
Annex I of that regulation defines rum, gin, whisky and around forty other categories in law: raw material, method, minimum strength. Article 10(7) then forbids using any of those legal names for a drink that does not meet the definition, including when the name is softened by type, style, taste, flavour or alcohol-free. In November 2025 the Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed the strict reading in case C-563/24: the prohibition applies even when the wording is there precisely to signal that the drink is not a gin.
A liquid at 0.0% ABV cannot meet a minimum strength of 37.5%. The legal names are closed to us, whatever prefix we place in front of them, and the same applies to zero proof and to any formulation that borrows a protected name to describe the finished drink.
What we write
Sober Spirits R 0.0%, a non-alcoholic spirit made from a real dealcoholized Caribbean rum. True, checkable, and describing the raw material rather than the finished drink.
What we never write
Any protected category name used to designate a Sober Spirits bottle, in a product title, a description, an image or a URL. Not on the label, not on this website.
Amaretto, bitter and aperitivo are not protected categories under Annex I. Those words we write plainly, because we are allowed to and because they describe exactly what is in the glass.
What each bottle starts from
| Bottle | Raw material and aromatic signature |
|---|---|
| Sober Spirits R 0.0% | Made from a real dealcoholized Caribbean rum. Light oak, vanilla, banana, caramelised dried fruit, sugar cane. |
| Sober Spirits G 0.0% | Made from a real dealcoholized French gin. Juniper berries, coriander, lemon zest, dry and precise. |
| Sober Spirits W 0.0% | It all starts with a real Scottish whisky, aged three years in oak casks. It then travels to Grasse for extraction, and it is only afterwards that it is redistilled in France. Toffee, caramel, cocoa, toasted oak. |
| Sober Spirits Amaretto 0.0% | Made from a real dealcoholized spirit. Bitter almond, caramelised hazelnut, vanilla, morello cherry, toasted French oak. |
| Sober Spirits Bitter Aperitivo 0.0% | Made from a real dealcoholized spirit. Blood orange, juniper, angelica, a spiced woody finish. |
| Sober Spirits Aperitivo Spritz 0.0% | Made from a real dealcoholized spirit. Blood orange, bitter orange, gentian, rhubarb. |
All six are bottled in 500 ml at 0.0% ABV, with 0% sugar, and made in France. See the full range in the non-alcoholic spirits collection, or start with the mocktail and cocktail recipes.
Frequently asked questions
How are non-alcoholic spirits made?
There are two families. Most brands compound: they blend water, natural flavourings and sometimes sugar into a drink that has never been distilled. We do the opposite. We take a spirit that has been distilled conventionally, extract its alcohol in Grasse through heat, pressure and thermal shocks, then rebuild the body with infusions, macerations and complementary distillations before redistilling in copper stills over a century old.
Is Sober Spirits R 0.0% a non-alcoholic rum?
That is the term most people search for, and it is the one European law does not allow us to use. Rum is a legal category defined in Annex I of regulation (EU) 2019/787, with a minimum strength of 37.5% ABV. What we can tell you is accurate and, we think, more interesting: the R 0.0% is a non-alcoholic spirit made from a real dealcoholized Caribbean rum.
What does dealcoholized mean?
It means the alcohol has been removed from a drink that contained it. In our case, extraction separates the aromatic compounds of a distilled spirit from its ethanol. We keep the aromatic fraction. The ethanol is recycled into the perfumery industry in Grasse.
Where are Sober Spirits made?
Extraction takes place in Grasse, in the south of France. Distillation and production take place in a partner distillery founded in 1875, at the foot of the Alps. The whole range is made in France.
Why does a bottle cost more than a syrup?
Because it starts as a real spirit, which has to be bought and distilled before anything else happens, and because extraction returns only a small share of that liquid. Add several days of production per batch, close to half a dozen techniques and a century-old copper still, and the cost structure has more in common with a spirits producer than with a soft drinks brand.
Is 0.0% really 0.0%?
Yes. Every bottle in the range is finished at 0.0% ABV and 0% sugar. The alcohol leaves the liquid at the extraction stage and is sold on to the perfumery industry.
Toast really, share fully
Taste what the process makes possible
Six bottles, 500 ml, 0.0% ABV, 0% sugar, made in France.
Discover the range