Optimist: Non-Alcoholic Spirits & Aperitivi

Dealcoholized wine is wine that has gone through the entire wine making process-- pressing, fermentation, and aging-- before the alcohol is removed.

Most wines are dealcoholized using a technique called "vacuum distillation", where the wine is heated under a vacuum at very low temperatures. This allows for the alcohol to evaporate at a much lower temperature than boiling it off on your stove, like when you cook with alcohol or spirits. The result is that the flavor molecules that make up the flavor notes stay intact, giving our dealcoholized wines their characteristic complexity.

Sometimes, producers may add grape juice, grape must (a crush of whole grapes), sugar, or flavoring agents back to the dealcoholized wine in order to bulk up the body or balance the flavor.

For a drink to be legally non-alcoholic, it has to be 0.5% alcohol by volume or less. While this doesn't make it totally alcohol-free, it does mean it is impossible to experience any intoxication or other psychoactive effects from alcohol. For context, a slice of sourdough bread or a ripe banana has more alcohol by volume than any of our drinks!

We carry a few hundred different products on our website with all different ingredients. We suggest you consult with your doctor regarding specific ingredients. Everything we carry is non-alcoholic-- less than 0.5% ABV-- and very popular with our customers who are pregnant (and those who aren't, too)!

Some of our products contain adaptogens, nootropics, and other herbs that are not recommended for people who are pregnant, but we're not doctors and do not give medical advice. Every body and pregnancy is different, so we suggest talking to a healthcare professional if you're unsure.

Not all of our non-alcoholic beverages are 100% alcohol-free. Some contain trace amounts of alcohol at less than 0.5% alcohol by volume.  This is consistent with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s labeling policy, which permits the use of the term, “non-alcoholic” to describe a product that contains less than 0.5% alcohol by volume.

If you are looking for products that are 0.0% alcohol by volume, look for the "Alcohol-Free" badge on the product page.

Non-alcoholic spirits are specifically developed for mixing in non-alcoholic cocktails. These spirits taste great when mixed with soda water, tonic water, sodas, juices, and even other non-alcoholic spirits, but they might taste a little weird on their own. You're welcome to try them neat (we can't stop you!), but we don't recommend assessing whether or not you like a non-alcoholic spirit without mixing it, first.