Between innovation and tradition

The manufacture of our non-alcoholic spirits

 

A DISTILLERY RICH IN HISTORY AND KNOW-HOW

It is in the heart of France, nestled at the beginning of the Alps, in a region renowned for the distillation of spirits, that we invent and develop the future of non-alcoholic drinks: Sober Spirits.

 

After more than 145 years of history, our partner distillery created in 1875 has seen the greatest products of today pass through the centuries. This red brick distillery is one of the oldest distilleries in France having secretly kept the best distillation techniques for the elaboration of spirits.

2 minutes to know everything about 
the making of our Non-Alcoholic Spirits.
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THE STORY BEGAN IN HIS KITCHEN...

Step 1: Learn the art of distillation from scratch and create amazing "kitchen" recipes.

 

The whole story started with a world tour of spirits that allowed Calixte to establish a complete cartography of the aromas and flavors that he wanted to find in Sober Spirits products.

 

Then, Calixte bought a small distiller to be able to learn everything from scratch about the art of distillation and thus succeed in creating "homemade" recipes, in his kitchen!


Equipped with pipettes, syringes, a touch of madness and a list of ingredients to test with the still, taste and compare, Calixte had onlyone goal: to create the best alcohol-free alternative for cocktails.

And it was necessary to use ingenuity...

FROM A REAL SPIRIT TO THE 0.0% VERSION

Step 2: Break the codes and innovate where no one has ventured!

 

Calixte started with a simple principle: "If we want to make REAL alternatives to spirits, why not start with REAL Spirits?"

 

Thus, at the heart of the Sober Spirits DNA was born what would make its greatest strength and what differentiated them from all competitors: the extraction of alcohol.

 

Let's take the example of SoberRum 0.0%, our alternative to rum, without alcohol: after a first distillation of a real rum from the French Caribbean, coming out of a still at 70 degrees, this rum is imported to Grasse (the world capital of perfumes), in the south of France, where the famous extraction of alcohol will be made.

 

Extraction is a technique for separating the elements that make up the spirit after distillation. Among other things, by heating, a system of pressure and thermal shocks, it allows us to split the taste (which we recover for our range of Sober 0.0% spirits) and the pure ethanol. 

This extraction is very complex and costly because we recover very little of the raw material of interest to us in Sober Spirits products after extraction. However, the ethanol is recycled in the high perfumery industry.

BUT IT WAS NECESSARY TO GO EVEN FURTHER IN THE TECHNIQUE

Step 3: Compliment the aromatics to create a cocktail experience.

 

The extraction of alcohol recovered being all the same bluffing, it missed however a little of panache, it was necessary to go even further.

 

In addition to what makes the DNA of Sober Spirits, Calixte wished to complete with different infusions, macerations or complementary distillations according to the products of the range in order tobring more body, intensity, finesse as well as an additional aromatic complexity thanks to the use of different plants, barks & fruits allowing to appreciate at each sip a cocktail experience without compromise. 

 

It is only after 2 years of R&D, several hundred distillation tests, the creation and adaptation of new alcohol extraction techniques, infusions and many questions on the technical feasibility that we succeeded in inventing Sober Spirits.

TRADITION AT THE HEART OF R&D AND INNOVATION AT THE SERVICE OF TASTE

Step 4: Now adapt the "Kitchen" recipe into a high volume recipe.
 

Our passionate master distiller, with his know-how, now produces the entire Sober Spirits range with a secret process that we have put in place through dozens of life-size tests before arriving at the finished products.

 

This production process lasts several days and requires nearly half a dozen different techniques, the two main ones being the extraction of alcohol and distillation in copper stills that are over a century old. Our technical expertise, the control of process duration and heating temperatures as well as the selection of suppliers allow us to exploit the full aromatic potential of the raw materials, key to the success of the Sober Spirits range and experience.