Ok, so there’s more than just spelling differences between these three terms, but you must admit, they ARE spelt differently. Right? Actually, sometimes even the same term is spelt differently before we do a spell check . . . ANYWAY.
The term ‘alcohol-free’ means different things depending on the type of product in question and the country you come from, but before we reveal our definitions, first here’s some background.
There is alcohol in a surprising number of everyday food products. For example, malt vinegar that we put on our chips contains around 0.2% alcohol, a normal glass of fresh orange juice can contain up to 0.5% alcohol, and essences that we add to our cooking, such as vanilla essence (not the synthetic one), are extracted using alcohol and can contain more than 20% alcohol.
Below are a few terms we use on our website to describe the amount of alcohol in our products:
Alcohol is added free of charge. No hidden fees or taxes. You get the beverage at the same cost as it would have been without Alcohol. This is similar to fat free items having fat added to the product with no additional charge. Don’t be confused - the whole beverage is not free, as Free Range Eggs are free to take at no charge, it’s just the alcohol component that is free.
Contains from absolutely zero to 0.05% alcohol by volume. Alcohol-free beverages are produced without any form of fermentation (or brewing), and in fact are produced in such a way as to guard against this, and often have preservatives added prior to bottling to ensure fermentation does not occur once stored. Alcohol-free beverages are generally not prohibited in any cultures.
This beverage does not contain alcoholics, but may contain traces of Teetotalers.
The drink contains 0.5% or less alcohol by volume. How much is 0.5%? Well according to one estimate a 73kg healthy male (Aus average male weight is around 86kg) would need to drink 8 to 10 x 200 ml glasses of non-alcoholic (0.5%) wine or beer within 10-15 minutes to feel any impact on their cognitive ability.
Non-alcoholic beverages generally undergo some form of fermentation, however the alcohol content is kept at 0.5% or lower by either: a) halting the fermentation process early; b) mixing unfermented drink with fermented drink to the appropriate proportion; or c) removing any excess alcohol through a process known as de-alcoholisation.
When a business no longer sells alcohol, either from running out of achohol (heard the song A Pub with no Beer??) or from losing their liquor licence, they haven’t been closed down as a business, just De-alcoholised.
De-alcoholised beverages are fermented (such as when making wines) but have most of the alcohol removed prior to being pasteurised and bottled. De-alcoholised beverages generally have the same or similar depth and complexity of taste that fermented (brewed) drinks have, yet with very low alcohol content, and this suits many wine drinkers who have a discerning palate.
All of our de-alcoholised wines and other beverages have 0.5% or less alcohol by volume.
How do they do this? Well, removing alcohol from wines is far more common than many would think. Winemakers are working with riper grapes to satisfy contemporary tastes, and wine growing regions are warming, which all means the grapes have the time and sunlight to accumulate more sugar. Together with new yeasts that tolerate higher levels of ethanol before giving up, means that alcohol levels in wines can be between 14%-18+%. Not only do many consumers find this too high, but both in the US and the EU, wines with more than 14% alcohol accrue higher taxes. A 2006 survey calculated that about 18% of California’s vintage in that year went though a de-alcoholising process. Wineries do this by processes known as reverse osmosis (membrane filtration) or spinning cone columns.
Some breweries may use heating to remove the alcohol. Alcohol boils at 78.5 deg C so careful heating of the beverage can cause alcohol to evaporate off with little change to the taste. The disadvantage of this is that heating also removes the bubbles (CO2), so these need to be put back in.
We sell only drinks containing up to 0.5% alcohol. We do not sell any products that fall into the ‘low-alcohol’ group containing up to 1.2% alcohol.
While our warehouse is in NSW, we ship our local and imported drinks to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Canberra, Darwin and everywhere in between!
Delivery times are:
We are committed to supplying our drinks to your door at minimal cost!
We freight our goods Australia wide using the best rates we can get from Fastway Couriers and Go Logistics, so unfortunately we CAN NOT deliver to PO Boxes or Parcel Lockers. A carton of drinks freighted to any capital city (sorry Darwin, unfortunately this does not yet include you), and some major regional cities on the east coast will cost no more than $17, and to our home state of NSW around $12. Locations other than those listed will cost more (not by our choice or yours of course). Our freight calculator will give an indication of the cost, but if we can get you a better deal we will certainly pass this on to you. If for some reason the cost is greater than on the Order, we will not proceed without first contacting you to ensure you still wish to proceed.