Two very different families of products coexist, on the one side products resulting from blends and infusions allowing to find aromas close to those of gins or other whiskies, and on the other side products resulting from dealcoholisation? In both cases, the alcohol content is absent but the method of production is different.
There are indeed more and more non-alcoholic drinks made from herbal mixtures that seek to reproduce the aromas of classic spirits, freeing themselves from the various stages of traditional production. These alternatives with interesting results are quite different from classic spirits, as they have not undergone fermentation or distillation.
On the contrary, dealcoholisation makes it possible to create a light or alcohol-free product from the original product and to keep the typicality and organoleptic qualities developed during the manufacturing process. Therefore, after the preparation of the must, fermentation, distillation and refining (or ageing), the spirit undergoes a final vacuum distillation to separate the alcohol from the liquid in order to obtain an alcohol-free product. Each of the stages in the production of spirits is maintained so that the know-how and aromas obtained are preserved: the copper of the distillers, for example, or the wood of the casks in which some spirits are aged for years (cognac must age for at least two years, for example).
The technologies of de-alcoholisation, by making it possible to preserve these aromas, offer the possibility of rediscovering in the final product all the authenticity of the terroir and production methods.