Non-alcoholic drinks that make you tipsy but not drunk?

Add to my fascination with vegetarian foods that are like meat (hallo, Beyond Meat Burgers etc) an almost equal fascination with non-alcohol or low alcohol-beers. Non-alcohol beers tend to be okay, best in show those from Guinness with its 0.0% stout.

Low-alcohol beers, very low-alcohol beers, area slightly different. For a start they have that slight tang of alcohol. Even a 1% such as Kinnegar’s 37 has a bit of bite. And as you move from 1% to 2.5% and up to 3.5% there’s a fair range. John Smith, for example, is at the latter end of the scale and is not a million miles away from Kilkenny’s ‘draught cream ale’ though due to the introduction of the deposit return scheme they may not be imported into the state much longer.

And what’s this, Vox did a piece on ‘the endless quest to replace alcohol’. A lot of it seems like fluff – all ‘wellness’ this and ‘wellness’ that, but there was mention of this:

Similarly, a UK startup called GABA Labs launched a synthetic alcohol called Sentia, designed to mimic the effects of alcohol without the hangovers or health problems.

Now Sentia is very intriguing indeed. 

For years, David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London and co-founder of GABA Labs, has been toying with the idea of a synthetic alcoholic drink that mimics the same euphoric effects of alcohol, without any of the groggy weekend-ruining hangovers. Think Star Trek’s synthehol come to life.

You might recall Nutt for a political reason.

Since 2016, the former drug tsar who was famously sacked after stating that cannabis, ecstasy and LSD were less harmful than alcohol, has been working on developing such a molecule. In 2021, GABA Labs launched Sentia Spirits, the world’s first plant-based, botanical-powered spirits that have 0% ABV but still make you tipsy. “It’s a drink that is based on the science of alcohol, particularly the low doses of alcohol that relax you and make you more sociable,” Nutt tells The Independent.        

So:

Sentia is what Nutt calls a “GABA spirit”. GABA, or gamma-aminobutyric acid, to give it its full name, is an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain that produces a calming effect. When you’re drinking an alcoholic beverage, those alcohol molecules bind to GABA receptors and cause the sedative, relaxing effects of GABA to be enhanced.

Anyhow, Sentia is a mix of various herbs and botanicals, including valerian, into a drink that is promised to give some sense of the experience of drinking alcohol with none of the side effects. Does it work? The Independent appears to think so in this review. There are two flavours, Sentia Red and Sentia Black. They really liked the Red. 

Sceptical as we might’ve been, Sentia’s non-alcoholic spirits did make us a little squiffy. While Sentia black tasted pretty horrendous, with a spicy, medicinal flavour that overpowered most mixers, it did give us that slightly woozy feeling you get when you have your first or second pint.

And as Nutt notes these are ‘proof of concept’.

But is it truly without side-effects? Some of those Time consulted seems somewhat sceptical.

Any product that promises neurological rewards could also become habit-forming, says Stanford’s Lembke. “There’s no way to get a euphoric effect or relaxant effect and not have some kind of rebound phenomenon,” she says. “In terms of biological systems, there’s no free lunch.” (While Orren and Nutt can’t promise their products won’t be habit-forming without clinical trials, Nutt emphasizes that he’s worked in psychopharmacology for decades and developed some of the methodologies used for assessing tolerance.)

Still, it’s an interesting approach. And there’s quite a few companies moving into this area.

Sentia is not the only product of its kind on the market. Kin Euphorics, Ghiaand Psychedelic Water are three of several startups selling alcohol-free beverages that use plant compounds to create a slightly buzzy, relaxing sensation. All three have trendy bragging rights: supermodel Bella Hadid is a partner in Kin Euphorics, Ghia was founded by an ex-Glossier executive and Psychedelic Water went viral on TikTok this year. All told, non-alcoholic spirit sales in the U.S. grew by almost 300% from 2016 to 2020, according to beverage-industry research firm IWSR.