Ritual Zero Proof Whiskey Alternative
Jul. 7th, 2025 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroFor some reason, Facebook decided I was really interested in non-alcoholic liquor replacements and started spamming me with advertisements for them. I did a little research and found a coupon that let me get two bottles from Ritual Zero Proof for $50 with free shipping, so I tried the Whiskey Alternative and Rum Alternative. (Their gimmick is that in addition to being no-alcoholic, these are only 5 calories per serving.)
Whiskey Alternative supposedly is flavored with oak, vanilla, capsicum fruit, “sugar floss” and mesquite smoke. When drunk straight, the capsaicin is very obvious (they were clearly trying to replace the burning from alcohol) and the vanilla comes through; the rest is more questionable. (And capsaicin lingers a lot more than alcohol burn.) There’s a big “emptiness” in the flavor profile versus actual whiskey, a distinct wateriness in the middle taste. (I also had a hard time detecting the smoke, though other people could.) I really look for caramel notes in whiskey, and this has none—it actually doesn’t have much sweetness at all, which I suspect is a side effect of making a “5 calorie” mixer.
In a Kentucky Mule (ginger beer, whiskey, lime), the ginger bite melds with the capsaicin and most of the other flavors get lost unless you go heavy on the spirit—I put easily twice as much of this as I’d put whiskey before the flavor balanced the ginger beer.
In a Whiskey Sour (simple syrup, lemon juice, whiskey, bitters) it produced something eminently drinkable but not particularly like a Whiskey Sour. Like, if you called this a Big Steve’s Sour Mocktail and I wasn’t expecting a Whiskey Sour, I’d think myself well-kept. Jethrien’s attempt at a Mint Julip was similar—it wasn’t a good substitute for the real thing, but it was perfectly drinkable as its own thing (also in that case, the capsaicin and menthol seemed to cancel each other out).
I tried a Whiskey Cranberry Cocktail (cranberry juice, maple syrup, bitters, whiskey) mostly because we had cranberry juice, and it was okay—nothing fought anything else, but the capsaicin heat really came through.
Then we did a “rum-tasting” party with a small group of friends, and so I opened up the bottle of Ritual Zero Proof Rum Alternative for that. Similarly, it doesn’t really taste like rum and is not suitable for drinking straight. It has a strong cinnamon overtone, though interestingly when made into a daiquiri (so, just adding lime and simply syrup) it transforms into a very ginger-y taste. And the rum snobs in the room made VERY amusing faces when trying it.
Again, though, while it has an interesting flavor profile that makes a fun mocktail, it’s not actually a good substitute for rum. In stronger-flavored cocktails (like, say, a pina colada) it just gets lost; and in subtler ones you’d never mistake it for real rum.
I’ll probably try some other brands when we finish these. Other brands include Free Spirits, Seedlip, Spiritless, Curious Elixirs (which are “infused” with various woo-woo herbs) and Lyre’s. Some are trying to mimic classic spirits, some are just making mocktail mixers with their own profile. There’s also at least one brand that has cannabis in it, which is absolutely not what I’m looking for. There seem to be more gins than anything else, which isn’t actually surprising because that’s all easily-mimicked botanicals, but I don’t like gin.
Overall: At least with this brand, it makes for tasty, interesting mocktails but it’s not actually a good substitute for the real thing if you’re going for a specific flavor set. (Actually, it makes me want to make up distracting names for all the mocktails so that nobody confuses them with the originals. Try a Disappointed Sailor, a Charlie Peanuts or a Turbo Lime Wedgie.)
Whiskey Alternative supposedly is flavored with oak, vanilla, capsicum fruit, “sugar floss” and mesquite smoke. When drunk straight, the capsaicin is very obvious (they were clearly trying to replace the burning from alcohol) and the vanilla comes through; the rest is more questionable. (And capsaicin lingers a lot more than alcohol burn.) There’s a big “emptiness” in the flavor profile versus actual whiskey, a distinct wateriness in the middle taste. (I also had a hard time detecting the smoke, though other people could.) I really look for caramel notes in whiskey, and this has none—it actually doesn’t have much sweetness at all, which I suspect is a side effect of making a “5 calorie” mixer.
In a Kentucky Mule (ginger beer, whiskey, lime), the ginger bite melds with the capsaicin and most of the other flavors get lost unless you go heavy on the spirit—I put easily twice as much of this as I’d put whiskey before the flavor balanced the ginger beer.
In a Whiskey Sour (simple syrup, lemon juice, whiskey, bitters) it produced something eminently drinkable but not particularly like a Whiskey Sour. Like, if you called this a Big Steve’s Sour Mocktail and I wasn’t expecting a Whiskey Sour, I’d think myself well-kept. Jethrien’s attempt at a Mint Julip was similar—it wasn’t a good substitute for the real thing, but it was perfectly drinkable as its own thing (also in that case, the capsaicin and menthol seemed to cancel each other out).
I tried a Whiskey Cranberry Cocktail (cranberry juice, maple syrup, bitters, whiskey) mostly because we had cranberry juice, and it was okay—nothing fought anything else, but the capsaicin heat really came through.
Then we did a “rum-tasting” party with a small group of friends, and so I opened up the bottle of Ritual Zero Proof Rum Alternative for that. Similarly, it doesn’t really taste like rum and is not suitable for drinking straight. It has a strong cinnamon overtone, though interestingly when made into a daiquiri (so, just adding lime and simply syrup) it transforms into a very ginger-y taste. And the rum snobs in the room made VERY amusing faces when trying it.
Again, though, while it has an interesting flavor profile that makes a fun mocktail, it’s not actually a good substitute for rum. In stronger-flavored cocktails (like, say, a pina colada) it just gets lost; and in subtler ones you’d never mistake it for real rum.
I’ll probably try some other brands when we finish these. Other brands include Free Spirits, Seedlip, Spiritless, Curious Elixirs (which are “infused” with various woo-woo herbs) and Lyre’s. Some are trying to mimic classic spirits, some are just making mocktail mixers with their own profile. There’s also at least one brand that has cannabis in it, which is absolutely not what I’m looking for. There seem to be more gins than anything else, which isn’t actually surprising because that’s all easily-mimicked botanicals, but I don’t like gin.
Overall: At least with this brand, it makes for tasty, interesting mocktails but it’s not actually a good substitute for the real thing if you’re going for a specific flavor set. (Actually, it makes me want to make up distracting names for all the mocktails so that nobody confuses them with the originals. Try a Disappointed Sailor, a Charlie Peanuts or a Turbo Lime Wedgie.)
