How Non-Alcoholic Spirits Are Made
Made from real spirits, dealcoholized
We take out the alcohol, not the taste.
What the label doesn’t tell you
Two ways to make a non-alcoholic spirit
Most brands
Either you invent a taste.
- 01Water + flavouring + sugar
- 02Distilled water
- 03Water infused with plants, fruit… and sugar
The result? Always the same problems: watery, very little aromatic complexity, often very sweet (up to 35% sugar), a taste that never matches what you know, little or no length on the palate (little texture, little structure), and a taste that fades as soon as you dilute it.
Sober Spirits
Or you start from the real taste.
- 01Making the alcoholic spirit
- 02Alcohol extraction, from around 60% down to 0.00%
- 03Redistillation & ageing to build complexity
Non-alcoholic spirits made from real dealcoholized spirits, with texture, structure and length on the palate. No alcohol, no sugar.
If we want to make real alternatives to spirits, why not start from real spirits?
We set out to create the most sophisticated products on the market
Up to 6 different techniques to reach the finished product. Here are the 4 main steps (pick a step to take a closer look).
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The base spirit
Making the spirit
Whether it’s our rum from the French Caribbean, the French gin or the whisky aged 3 years in oak casks, everything is distilled like any other spirit, by houses that have done it for generations. This is our aromatic starting point.
Grasse, the Sober Perfumery
Alcohol extraction
“Nothing is lost, everything becomes perfume.”
The spirit goes into columns 4 to 5 metres tall, under controlled pressure and at a moderate temperature. The ethanol evaporates, bringing the spirit down degree by degree to 0.0%, while the aromatics stay intact. The alcohol removed then goes to the perfume industry, where it gets a second life.
Family distillery at the foot of the Alps
Redistillation, ageing
To give the non-alcoholic spirit back its body and aromatic intensity after extraction, we build up its aromatics by redistilling, macerating or ageing the liquid. Some of these steps are new techniques, invented by Sober Spirits and kept secret at the distillery.
The master distiller’s palate
Taste, adjust, bottle
Before bottling, our master distiller noses and tastes every batch next to the reference. Then we blend, filter and bottle.
Sober Spirits, made from real dealcoholized spirits, 0.0% alcohol and 0 sugar, were born.
Innovation
Techniques we invented, then protected
Sober Spirits doesn’t borrow methods from wine or beer. The brand invents its own techniques, tests them in R&D all year round and protects them.
Alcohol extraction is a set of innovative techniques, either patented or kept secret.
Like ageing a non-alcoholic spirit: a well-kept production secret.
Sober Spirits is a trademark protected worldwide.
For bartenders and technicians
The spirit is placed under pressure in columns 4 to 5 metres tall. Here, cooling keeps the liquid fresh and lowers the boiling point of ethanol to around 30 to 32 °C.
The precision of the patented process lets us choose which extracted molecules to keep and which to leave out. The “-OL” family, such as ethanol, methanol and alcohols in general, and the “-OSE” family, such as fructose, glucose, sucrose and sugars in general, are set aside, and none of it is kept. What remains keeps a roundness on the palate and a slightly sweet taste, with no sugar.
Nothing spicy is added afterwards. No chilli, no pepper, no ginger to imitate the burn of alcohol.
Sober Spirits invents innovative techniques, such as ageing non-alcoholic spirits, which are among the brand’s best-kept production secrets.
Where the idea came from
It all started in a kitchen
Calixte started by touring distilleries and filling tasting notebooks. Then he bought a small still online and learned the craft at home, from scratch.
For two years, he distilled everything that grows: plants, bark, fruit, flowers. He learned to read tastes, aromas, textures and the structure of a spirit. Then he trained in extraction with perfumers.
Next, he needed a distillery. Of the fifty or so he contacted, 49 said no. Only one, tucked away at the foot of the Alps, agreed to innovate: an alcohol specialist, it took the leap into non-alcoholic spirits with him.
The course hasn’t changed since: take the weaknesses of non-alcoholic drinks (watery, no texture, no structure, no length on the palate) and turn them into our strengths, while innovating.
The founders
A success story built by two brothers
Calixte & Victor, two passionate brothers, built from scratch what is now seen as one of the world’s benchmarks in non-alcoholic drinks. At the heart of their DNA: a culture of innovation and the cocktail experience.
Our story, year by year
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1875
- Our partner distillery is founded, between Lyon and the Alps.
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20202021
Before the launch
- 49 distilleries turn the project down before the right one says yes.
- 2 years of R&D, new techniques and several hundred trials.
- 2021Trophy for the World’s Best Non-Alcoholic Spirit 2021, even before the official launch.
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2022
Year 1 · 7 countries
- 4 JanuaryOfficial launch of Sober Spirits.
- JanuaryLaunch of Sober Spirits R 0.0%.
- MayLaunch of Sober Spirits G 0.0%.
- May1st international trade show and the start of exports.
- Voted World’s Best Non-Alcoholic Spirit (SFWSC).
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2023
Year 2 · 18 countries
- MarchLaunch of Sober Spirits W 0.0%.
- Voted World’s Best Non-Alcoholic Spirit (SFWSC).
- Voted Non-Alcoholic of the Year (London Spirits Competition).
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2024
Year 3 · 25 countries
- MarchLaunch of Sober Spirits Amaretto 0.0%.
- OctoberLaunch of Sober Spirits Bitter Aperitivo 0.0%.
- Voted World’s Best Non-Alcoholic Spirit (SFWSC) and Platinum: the first non-alcoholic brand to win 3 years in a row, by unanimous jury decision.
- Voted World’s Best Non-Alcoholic Spirit (World Alcohol-Free Awards).
- Spirit of the Year 2024, voted by 500 wine and spirits retailers in France.
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2025
Year 4 · 32 countries
- JuneLaunch of Sober Spirits Aperitivo Spritz 0.0%.
- Voted World’s Best Non-Alcoholic Producer (IWSC).
- Voted World’s Best Non-Alcoholic (World Drinks Awards).
- Spirit of the Year 2025, voted by 500 wine and spirits retailers in France.
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2026
Year 5 · 44 countries
- DecemberDistributed in 44 countries.
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The story is still being distilled.
LaunchAwardExport
Voted best non-alcoholic spirits in the world
Judges taste without seeing the bottle or the brand. Since 2021, our spirits have come out ahead of everything else on the market.
Best Non-Alcoholic Spirit 2021
Non-Alcoholic of the Year 2023
Platinum title: World’s Best 3 years in a row
World’s Best Non-Alcoholic Spirit
Producer of the Year
World’s Best Alcohol-Free Spirit
What the process makes possible
Non-alcoholic spirits that replace alcohol
Sober SpiritsR 0.0%Made from a real dealcoholized Caribbean rum
Sober SpiritsG 0.0%Made from a real dealcoholized French gin
Sober SpiritsW 0.0%Made from a real dealcoholized 3-year-old whisky
Sober SpiritsAmaretto 0.0%Made from a real dealcoholized spirit
Sober SpiritsBitter Aperitivo 0.0%Made from a real dealcoholized spirit
Sober SpiritsAperitivo Spritz 0.0%Made from a real dealcoholized spirit
Free shipping from 2 bottles.
FAQ
What people ask us most
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.