UNCORKED
So this no and low-alcohol thing is a bit trendy, isn’t it?
It is indeed. The fastest growing part of the drinks world, in fact. Some of the biggest names have given it their blessing.
Who? Jancis? Parker? Aubert de Villaine?
Kylie Minogue, Lewis Hamilton and Sarah Jessica Parker.
And they’ve approved it how, exactly?
By launching a sparkling rosé, agave spirit and low-alcohol wine range respectively.
Is SJP’s sparkler called Sekt in the City?
Very good. But actually it’s a 7% alcohol by volume Prosecco, so no.
What? 7% alcohol? I thought the whole point of no-and-low was that they were all booze-free. Come on, this is the drinks world. Of course it’s more complicated than that. Low-alcohol is meant to be for anything at 1.2% abv or below [according to UK definitions], but is often used as shorthand for drinks that are just not fullstrength. Like ‘small beers’ at 2% or Ms Parker’s Sevenly range, where the clue’s in the name.
So what’s alcohol-free then?
It can vary a bit from country to country, but generally it’s 0.5% abv and below. Zero, you’ll be pleased to hear, means zero. [The UK government is consulting on whether to raise the threshold for describing a drink as ‘alcohol free’ from the currently defined 0.05% to 0.5% abv, in line with other comparable countries.]
My head hurts.
You shouldn’t have drunk four bottles of Sevenly.
0.5% seems a weirdly random number for alcohol-free. Not at all. It’s a level at which your body processes the minimal amount of alcohol quite easily, so you don’t get intoxicated. And it can naturally occur in things like ripe bananas or an open carton of orange juice, so even avowed teetotallers might occasionally consume that much inadvertently.
How do they make these drinks? Are they just alcoholic versions with the booze taken out? Yes. But also no.
Let me guess – it’s complicated. Beers can be brewed to 0.5% without de-alcoholisation. And some spirits are made by fermenting base ingredients and then adding additional flavours. We’ll get into ‘wine alternatives’ later. But de-alcoholisation to some degree is common, especially for wine. It’s a very complicated and skilled process.
Why’s that?
Because alcohol is great at holding flavour, so when you take it out of a drink, you lose quite a bit of the character.
To be fair I can think of some drinks that would be improved if you removed most of their flavour.
Clockwise from top left: Club Soda Tasting Room, Bar &Shop in London (see also ‘Book in’, p10); Kylie Minogue holding her No Alcohol Sparkling Rosé drink; aBlossom non-alcoholic cocktail made using Seedlip Grove 42 citrus non-alcoholic spirit and juice of blood orange; for mixing drinks, ginger is one of the best ‘functional��
