Can No Alcohol Cider Taste as Good as The Real Thing?

There was a time when, if you wanted a non-alcoholic drink, the choice was pretty uninspiring but, driven by a huge surge in no and low drinkers, the shelves are now brimming with alcohol-free alternatives! Sadly, a lot of those are still not that inspiring! We’ve eyed this trend suspiciously for some time but, in the end, we’ve seen it as a challenge to use all our cider know-how to produce a drink with all the taste of our fabulous cider but none of the alcohol. We thought you would like to know just how and why we did it!

The Rise of the Sober Curious

In the past decade, there has been a definite shift in the way that many people view alcohol consumption. There are still plenty of us who enjoy a great pint or two every week but there is also a growing section of the population who choose to drink less, or even no, alcohol in their weekly routine. In fact, Drink Aware highlights a Health Survey for England report that shows that the proportion of adults who drink at least once a week has declined from 54% to 48% between 2011 and 2022, whilst the proportion of non-drinkers increased from 16% to 19% in the same period. Scratch beneath the surface and it seems that it’s the younger generation that are leading the way with only 36% of adults aged between 16 and 24 drinking at least once a week and a whopping 26% of this age group describing themselves as teetotal.

The No & Low Boom

As the interest in switching occasionally, or permanently, to no or low alcoholic drinks has escalated, with campaigns such as Sober October and Dry January, discerning non-drinkers have sought out better options. The result is a whole section of ‘grown up’ non-alcoholic drinks in every supermarket and off licence and, even in the hallowed drinking grounds of the local pub, there is a much more extensive choice of alcohol-free tipples. Sadly, not all of these offerings are a real alternative. If you want a soft drink, there is nothing wrong with that but if you want a non-alcoholic equivalent of the alcoholic drink you would enjoy if you weren’t driving, pregnant or having a day/week/month off the booze, then you don’t want a soft drink dressed up as a pint. Unfortunately, that is what many producers have created.

Alcohol-Free Cider Done Right

When we gave in to the mounting pressure to create something suitable for this growing market, we definitely did not want to insult our loyal cider fans with an apple juice disguised as a non-alcoholic cider. We wanted to offer all the great taste of our fabulous cider to all drinkers, whatever the occasion and we weren’t ready to compromise.

We learned from the best, we thought that Guinness Zero was the most impressive of all the beer products, so adopted the same technology and used it on cider. The result is our brand new Red Zero! As with Guinness, we’ve created a real fermented drink with the alcohol filter extracted at 2 degrees. For quality, it’s on another level.

You can now drink the most amazing cider imaginable, you get all the flavour but skip the alcohol – we’d call it alcohol-free cider, done right.

Challenge your Perceptions

There are still plenty of people who, in some cases due to an earlier unpleasant experience with an undrinkable non-alcoholic drink, don’t believe that a low or no product can be a viable substitute for their beloved pint, but believe us when we say we used to hold that perception too! We are thrilled with Red Zero. It is an utterly delicious, crisp and fruity non-alcoholic cider created from fabulous apple varieties including Farmers Glory, Dabinett and Sweet Alford. We’re really proud of our team and how hard they’ve worked to produce a cider with the same attention to detail as our flagship Devon Red. We use all the same care and traditional cider methods and then remove the alcohol. We challenge you to order some from our shop and see if you can taste the difference. Let us know what you think.