Whether you’re a confirmed teetotaler or just gifting your liver a spa retreat this Sober October, liquor-free libations don’t have to be boring. Here are some of the newer Austin-made non-alcoholic products on the market.
Spiritless Kentucky 74
This women-led company was founded in bourbon country but moved its headquarters to Austin this summer. If you’re just sipping, the distilled non-alcoholic spirit isn’t going to fool you into thinking you’re drinking the real thing, but it’s a surprisingly suave substitute in bourbon-based cocktails, especially when goosed, as suggested, by a kicky ginger simple syrup.
Clean Cause Sparkling Yerba Mate
Want to get hella caffeinated but hate the taste of coffee? This canned herbal tea boasts about twice the amount of caffeine as your average cup of coffee, plus the bop of bubbles and low to no calories. (The blackberry flavor rules.) Best yet? Fifty percent of profits go to addiction recovery.
Bhoomi
Recent winner of a $15,000 prize in H-E-B’s Quest for Texas Best contest, this cold pressed sugar cane water drink gets a boost from Ayurvedic super botanicals like ashwagandha, amla, and turmeric. Unrelated to flavor, the plant-based bottle has a pleasant heftiness in hand, and – not gonna lie – it’s pretty charming how co-founder Arpit Bhopalkar signs off on the label as “Former International Table Tennis Athlete.” (If I was a former international table tennis athlete, I’d brag about it too!)
Crisp & Crude
This pandemic-born CBD cocktail business (née Sweet Crude) rebranded in the fall and expects its new battalion of zero-proof, “mood-lifting” canned cocktails to arrive on Austin retail shelves by the end of the month. The Botanical Terpenes line includes ready-to-drink flavors Mellow Mule, Gold Fashioned, and Paloma Daydream, while the Hemp & Botanical Terpenes line adds a fourth flavor, OG Tonic.
This article appears in The Drinks Issue (2021).
