‘We want to be the Noma of non-alc.’ A bold statement by anyone’s standards but when those words are coming from the mouth of Ben Branson (the founder of Seedlip and, consequently, the man who kickstarted the UK’s non-alcoholic movement), you feel inclined to believe them. Even more so when you’ve spent three hours in the distillery and maturation laboratory where he and a small crack team are making Sylva Padauk, a brand-new dark ‘spirit’ that is set to shake up the category.
Based on Branson’s 25-acre estate (a former Benedictine monastery and mill) on the border of Suffolk and Essex, Branson and head of R&D Jack Wareing (himself an alumnus of award-winning bars and cocktail brands) have built an homage to one of the drinks industry’s most valuable resources: wood.
Books, beams and branches festoon the workspace, woodstore and lab where the pair are using techniques such as toasting, roasting, gravity percolation and futuristic-sounding ‘sonic ageing’ to make a series of dark, non-alcoholic spirits that showcase the complexity of flavours that can come out of what grows in our proverbial (and in Branson’s case, literal) back yard.
Traditions from the world of dark spirits are being honoured but the freedom to operate outside of the regulations imposed on whisky, rum and Cognac makers is being maximised. Branson hopes the result will be an example of how far you can stretch the possibilities of a non-alcoholic dark spirit drink beyond mere mimicry.
Sylva’s first release is Sylva Padauk, which takes its name from a clay-orange West African wood that instantly excited the duo. ‘As soon as we extracted the padauk, we decided to build the entire liquid around that,’ explains Branson of the beginnings of their first bottling. ‘It was wild,’ continues Wareing. ‘It’s super heavy, really resinous and bright red. I’ve never seen anything like it. And then we started chopping it up and it smelt like the sea, like roasted paprika.’
It’s been used alongside red oak from the lab’s forest, as well as spent American oak barrel staves that have previously been used to age sustainable pioneer of the Scotch world, Nc’nean whisky, and olivewood. Rye is also used for Padauk and its peppery and spiced notes are drawn out via processes like malted rye extraction and toasted rye vacuum distillation (more on those later). The result is a copper-hued, warming liquid with crème caramel character (in both mouthfeel and flavour), with notes of coffee, chocolate cake, coconut and a hint of warming spice. It’s a far cry from the overly sweet, viscous renditions often found in the non-alc sections of supermarket drinks aisles.
The spirits industry is no stranger to wood – any dark spirit you drink will have met a barrel at some point in its life. Branson is no stranger to it either, having come from a family of wood workers and timber merchants. But while most spirits are subject to a relatively small variety of wood types, the inventory at the laboratory currently sits at around 50 different types of wood – from black walnut, silver birch and cherry, to panga panga, limousin and mango. A lot of the woods they’re using are unknown outside of the likes of wood turners, never mind distillers.
Branson hopes the result will be an example of how far you can stretch the possibilities of a non-alcoholic dark spirit drink beyond mere mimicry
‘A lot of what we started with was asking “What does wood give to liquid?”’ explains Wareing. ‘How can we leach these incredible things out of, say, oak first? So we’re looking at scientific papers about what the actual chemical breakdown is over the years, what the influence of oxygen has, all that fun stuff.’ They have discovered woods that have five times the leachable flavour and aromatic compounds than others, which are able to impart more flavour on liquids they contain.
Other methods like charring turns wood into ‘this other beast entirely’ he continues. He and Branson have burned the likes of padauk over silver birch coals in the depths of the forest, which brought out distinct notes such as chocolate cake, ‘which we didn’t anticipate at all’. Indeed, the duo are very open about the fact the process of creating Sylva is based on discovery rather than knowledge. ‘It’s a live experiment,’ says Branson. ‘We’re experimenting as we go. We don’t know, for example, if black walnut is going to be better roasted or charred.’
In the lab, the process of sonic ageing allows the team to speed up the process of ageing and concentrate the liquid even more than longer, conventional ageing. ‘The addition of heat and pressure and ultrasound and oxygen: all those things together means that we’re just giving it the best chance to develop these really delicious esters and flavours and phenolics and these amazing aromatic compounds that you do get in oak after, like, 20 years,’ Wareing explains.
In the case of Padauk, the wood chips are kegged with the rye in stainless steel, before having oxygen added and then pressurised to 50psi. This forces oxygen into the wood and the liquid, allowing esters and flavour compounds to form. The keg then goes into a sonic chamber, where it is subjected to ultrasound in half-hour cycles over several days before vacuum filtration.
For the science-illiterate like myself, it’s still not a clear-cut process but it doesn’t really matter when we head to the forest to see some of the trees that have inspired Branson and Wareing to dedicate their lives to bringing the flavours of wood to curious drinkers. Looking around the expanse of forest that Branson is hoping to regenerate, my time onsite has given me a new perspective on how the giants we so often take for granted can be used to make delicious drinks.
This is a product for anyone who cares about craft, flavour, imagination and innovation
Branson and Wareing’s respect for their materials and thirst for knowledge is palpable as they play what feels like tree-fact tennis, identifying varieties and expounding on their nuances. Their commitment to the ecological aspect of what they are doing is also key; taking care of woodlands, not taking too much from them, and understanding where they sit in on the silviculture spectrum.
It could be argued that at £40 a bottle, Sylva is expensive but considering the bigger picture (the process and the possibilities), the price reflects the admirable work that goes into making an industry-first product. Sure, it’s not a like-for-like non-boozy replacement for, say, a single malt whisky but that isn’t the point; it might technically be a non-alc dark spirit but it shouldn’t be defined by an absence. This is a product for anyone who cares about craft, flavour, imagination and innovation. Given that Branson and Wareing are yet to realise the full potential of Sylva, it’s clear that they’re putting down some serious roots for the future of flavour in non-alcoholic drinks.
