Non-alcoholic Spirits - Whiskey // Lyre's, Free Spirits, Ritual Zero Proof, Spiritless Kentucky 74
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- Опубліковано 4 чер 2024
- In this episode, we review 4 Non-alcoholic "whiskey" brands. Lyre's American Malt, Free Spirits Spirit of Bourbon, Ritual Zero Proof Whiskey Alternative, Spiritless Kentucky 74.
I wanted to do something for those teetotallers out there. If you remember, way back in episode 21 of the Show, we had Jeff Stevens of WellBeing who said he's wasn't sure whether they would be able to take the alcohol out of bourbon. Here we are over three years later, and what do we have? NA Whiskey alternatives.
And that's because the NA spirits world is booming. This market is expected to be $30 billion by 2025, and in the U.S. alone, NA spirits grew 113.4% in the last year.
Recently more than 40 of these alcohol alternative brands created the Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association. Four of those companies are represented here-Ritual Zero Proof, Spiritless, Lyre's, The Free Spirits Company.
Interestingly, most of these brands are not focused on the sober lifestyle. They are just looking at the trend of wellness, and it's being driven by what's being called the "sober-curious movement." People that drink alcohol but are mindful of alcohol's impact on their physical and mental state.
What we are trying to figure out is which of these you want to have on your bar. So we will do a score these on taste & smell, look and feel. Count them up and see who wins.
Chapters
0:00 Cold Open
0:20 Non-alcoholic Whiskey Intro
1:53 Blind Tasting
13:37 Cocktail Tasting
17:51 Aesthetics
23:43 The Results
Have you tried any of these? Should I try one of the other ones? Let me know what you think in the comments.
If you want to try these and are in the St. Louis area, when we have our regular live events, we will have one of these bottles on the bar for everyone out there to enjoy. So come by and check them out.
I'm looking forward to something we have coming up; we'll have more review; we're going to do some quick shots with entrepreneurs that come to the event about various topics.
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Was diagnosed with epilepsy five years ago and the meds can not be mixed with alcohol, so my savior has been NA spirits. Right now I’m enjoying a moscato and Kentucky 74
I truly appreciate your review. Thank you.
Thank you for the effort and analysis! Great job!
Much appreciated!
Great stuff
During the blind taste test, it would be nice to see on the screen which one your are tasting. It doesn’t need to be blind for us too, hehe.
What you don't want to back track when I figure it out,? No mystery? Totally fair and noted!
@@bourbonfridays Haha yeah, granted, not everyone is as ADHD as me.
My wife has been on a quest to find a solid NA drink. She's tried wines, beers and these NA liquors that you have here. To me, these just taste like spicy herbal tea. No bueno. Great video. Thanks.
Yes, they do. To me NA Beers are where they should be. Also, the Beckett's line at Total Wine, if you have that in your area, are pretty decent. They've been smart in the products they select. They are sweetened with Stevia to keep the calorie count low, so the sweetness can be over the top, but they at least taste similar to what they are suppose to taste like.
I really appreciated this review! I bought a bottle of Ritual a couple years ago as an alternative to mix with eggnog - I didn't enjoy the flavor neat and it clashed really badly with the eggnog flavor. I think based on this review I'll give Lyre's a shot this Christmas for my eggnog, I hope it's a little better.
Traveling recently I found that Tanqueray has a NA gin, but it's only available in the UK and Spain at the moment. I'll need to get another NA gin from an American company to compare before the bottle I bought at the duty-free shop runs out.
I haven't had any of the non-whiskey styles. I would be interested to see whether they are any better. I feel like Gin would be way easier to replicate. Didn't know Tanqueray has an NA.
Just tossed some Ritual into my chai tea = quite interesting.
@@ZekeBriarcliff My thought with all of these was that I feel like you could get a closer approximation to whiskey by using an herbal tea blend.
For health reasons I quit drinking completely in July '21. I have found one of these helps but they all say not meant to be straight, neat, or on rocks
Totally respect that, and I understand that. Which is why I made simple cocktails with them in the review. My review is just give an honest perspective as a whiskey drinker. My understanding is that some of the "non-whiskey" NA spirits are quite good and there are several NA Beers that are excellent. I feel like these all miss the mark, and that the market should demand better and not settle for mediocrity with a premium price. I legitimately want them to be better for people that choose not to drink whether that's for one drink, one day, or one lifetime.
Thank you so much for being the only UA-camr I have seen so far that doesn’t like Spiritless Kentucky 74 on its own! I tried it and was massively disappointed with it. All I got was this weird barley taste that just over powered every cocktail I tried with it. I ended up dumping about half the bottle down the drain! I will be inclined to try these based on your review since we might have the same pallet!
Lol... I think the issue is that I still drink, so I actually know what these are suppose to taste like. NA Spirits are basically where things like O'douls and Sharps were vs Athletic, Wellbeing, Guinness 0 are today. I saw that Fred Minnick, a whiskey judge and historian, did a review of 74 Spiced and didn't mind it, which I'd be curious to try it but it hasn't hit my area. So far the Beckett's line from Total Wine has been the best NA Spirits and Cocktails brand, that I've encountered, but they've been smart in products they release, as they are more reproducable. I just wished they used less Stevia.
Is 74 spiced the name of the brand?
@@davidscherer9623 Spiritless Kentucky 74 Spiced
I love the glasses & tops. Where are they from?
They are just Standard Glencairns and then lids are CairnCaps both bought on Amazon. a.co/d/fxphmpJ
I've been very curious about Gnista, I hear the flavor packs a better punch than the other but maybe that was just a few generous videos.
Their barreled oak
@@brendanwhipple6787 Thanks for the recommendation. Maybe we should do a follow up for Dry January 2023!
I'm surprised you didn't notice any sweetness in the Lyre's, given that it has 20 g/l of sugar.
The bottle of Lyre's I have is 1g of carbs per oz which is around there; it lists no sugar even though the ingredients would lead you to believe otherwise... lol. So they are less perceptibly sweet as a quarter teaspoon of sugar in an ounce of water, but not sweet in the same way 10g/oz of ethanol in whiskey. It's all subjective, but to me the sweetness does nothing to elevate the other flavors or vice versa.
Free Spirits is awesome with cola, it’s not a real Jack and Coke, but it’s pretty damn good
I'll be honest I'm not a huge Jack and Coke fan. I always feel like it ruins two good things 😂
bought the ritual and everyone who tried it with me agreed it tastes like sweet baby rays BBQ sauce
I wonder whether it would make a good marinade
I don’t drink for religious purposes but am fascinated by spirits. Since I have no frame of reference for spirits would it be worth trying this?
You could try them in a cocktail, but I wouldn't try them on the rocks or neat. I think some of the other NA spirits might be a better bet than any of these. The other question is if it must be zero alcohol for a religious reason; bare in mind that all of these have a tiny amount of alcohol.
@@bourbonfridays Doesn't zero proof mean 0 alcohol?
@@DirectCherry If it were truly zero proof then yes. But like other NA products legally they can have up to 0.5% alcohol (so, technically 1 Proof). I know people that won't drink things unless it says 0.0%. Even though you are likely talking about the same alcohol as eating a slice of bread or a banana.
@@bourbonfridays yeah, that makes sense. I believe Ritual's Whiskey alternative is 0.0% ABV. I may be wrong, but that would mean it's got no alcohol, right? I think SOME non-alcoholic spirits truly have 0 alcohol.
@@DirectCherry Yes, I think Ritual is Zero, they say they are alcohol free. Lyre's, Free Spirit, and Spiritless are not.
add a drop of hot sauce for some bite
Most of them have capsaicin in them. It's a totally different bit than the real thing. And while I like hot sauce, I generally avoid it in anything but a bloody mary.
What I want to know, is, does it taste like bourbon. Bought a bottle of Lyre's and it didn't. I'm not interested in any of the other stuff.
So, none of them taste like bourbon. Will some of them give a hint of oak to a cocktail yes. But neat or rocks, they are nowhere close. So can a manhattan or old-fashioned taste like they should ... hell no.
@@bourbonfridays Okay. When you get a non-alcoholic bourbon that tastes like bourbon let me know. Thank you for your reply.
@@donswearingen9805 I think you'll be waiting for a while ... lol
Isn’t that the point? It’s non alcoholic
The point is to taste meh? 😂
all these spirits are made to be mixed with, not to be drank neat
Did you quit about 5 minutes in? I did make a simple cocktail. Like anyone interested in making good drinks or food, you should taste your ingredients.
Everyone who comes back with "mixed" never explains why they are making excuses for $40 bottles of brown, spicy water.
As long as people accept mediocrity and buy these, that's exactly what they'll get.
Admittedly, we are in the early days. But we can just skip the phase where we went from O'douls and Sharp's to Athletic and Wellbeing.
If you are paying a Premium, demand a Premium. You deserve better.
Sorry but I've never really understood the role that NA drinks serve. Nobody drinks beer because of its "amazing" taste, we drink it because it makes you feel nice and relaxed after a 12 hour work day, or sitting on a sunny beach, or flipping burgers and hotdogs on a grill on a hot summer day. Theres beers that taste good as far as compared to other beers, but I dont think anybody drinks beer because they're craving the taste. And if NA beers dont give you that relaxed, tingly feel, then what are we doing, unless theres a placebo effect, and you convince yourself that you're drinking real beer and you lie to yourself and think you're buzzed. Same goes for NA liquor too. Didn't even know there was NA whiskey😂 I'll have to pass on that lol. If I for some reason have to quit drinking I can't foresee me missing the taste so much that I'll want to pick up an NA whiskey.
I think a lot of people would disagree with you on the amazing taste. Do they just have terrible beer where you live? 😂 But I get it, I'm not much of a wine drinker and people insist there something special there.
A LOT of socializing in the US revolves around booze, and sometimes, you just want to be social but don't want to drink for whatever reason. I drink but am doing Dry January, and went to a birthday party last week, where everyone else was drinking, brought my own NA Stout and it just makes it easier. And sometimes you want a beer, but you got shit to do later... It's good for that too.
The NA segment is growing year over year ($11 Billion in 2022), largely driven by genz and millennials drinking way less than previous generations and the opportunities that creates. If that trend continues there is no way businesses miss out on that money and I mean everything from Corporation to Bars.
Don't worry about NA Whiskey's if you quit drinking, none of them replicate the taste to any degree.