Historically, if you didn't want to drink, your options were sparkling water, soft drink or a super sweet mocktail. Today, it's an exciting scene that sommeliers and bar staff take very seriously. Non-alcoholic drinks are now made so well they're complex and interesting, and the very good ones pair well with food, sometimes even better than wine.

Restaurants come to us for their tea programs. For the past five years, they've come to us just as much for their non-alc menus. Our guidance usually centres on extraction and fermentation, tea selection, and increasingly herbs, spices and every part of the botanical. Our teas and botanicals bring no acid. Their big jobs are tannin structure, texture and depth.

As we see it, there are three styles of wine alternative:

1. De-alcoholised: wine with the alcohol taken out. This can take some aroma and body with it, but it's getting better all the time.
2. Tea-based: a drink built on tea. Without fermentation the body can be thin, so these are usually carbonated to help.
3. Constructed: a drink built layer by layer, the way a chef would, to put complexity and depth back where alcohol was.

We mainly work across the last two. A tip, though: adding botanicals to a de-alcoholised wine to bring back its aroma works brilliantly.

Sense

Target

Appearance

Rosé colour

Aroma

Lifted and persistent. Floral, fruit, citrus

Taste

Off-dry. Bright acidity. Restrained bitterness. No perceptible salt

Mouthfeel

Medium body. Fine astringency. Fine, delicate mousse

Chemesthesis

Gentle warmth

Flavour

Medium-plus intensity. Main flavour: tart red fruit. Background: floral and tea. Medium depth

Finish

Long

2. Build

Now build it. This is where you choose your ingredients, methods and techniques. Each target in the brief is handled by a layer of the drink, and the layers fall into three stages: Foundation, Heart and Finish. For each layer, pick the ingredient that does the job, then the technique that gets the most out of it. Here's what we did for the rosé, and some other ways you could go.

Foundation

Liquid base, Structure, Texture

Foundation is what everything else sits on. Our liquid base is water and white grape must. The must gives body and brings back the sweetness alcohol used to give. Bright acidity comes from malic, citric and lactic acids, plus hibiscus and the strawberry shrub. Ceylon brewed strong and short gives fine tannin without much bitterness. A pinch of salt, below what you can taste, softens bitterness and helps the acid and tannin taste like one thing, the way alcohol did. Texture comes from the must, hibiscus pectin and White Peony brewed long at 75°C, so it doesn't turn bitter.

Every one of these is a design decision. Water kefir, or must fermented with kefir, gives a base with more body and a little natural fizz. Verjuice gives acid with a more wine-like edge. A fermented chilli saline can do the salt's job and add warmth at the same time.

Get this right before you move on. Taste it on its own. It should already feel like a drink, not flavoured water.

Heart

Heart flavour, Depth, Background, Aromatics

Heart is what the drink tastes of. Our heart flavour is hibiscus. It brings tart red fruit, the rosé colour, acid and body. Its colour shifts with acidity, so we can't lower the acid too far or the pink fades. Pink also sets up red fruit before the first sip. Medium-roast oolong gives depth, and lacto-fermented strawberry adds a little funk under the fruit. Rose and the teas already in the drink add floral and tea notes in the background. For aromatics, we use White Peony steeped cold overnight, rose, lemon zest, orange blossom and the strawberry shrub. Zest fades first, so it goes in last.

Brewed hot, the same White Peony gave us texture. One leaf. Two jobs. Two techniques.

For a different drink, the heart could be a fruit shrub on its own. Kombu steeped cold gives savoury depth you feel but can't name. Thyme or osmanthus can change the whole aroma.

Taste again here. This is where the drink gets its identity.

Finish

Contrast, Warmth, Length

Finish is what stays after you swallow. Grapefruit bitters, by the drop, give restrained bitterness so the drink isn't too smooth. Most carry a trace of alcohol, so we keep an alcohol-free one on hand. Cinnamon, lightly infused, gives gentle warmth where alcohol's heat used to be. Length comes from the structure underneath. The acid, tannin and salt are what keep the flavour going.

A few drops of fresh chilli infusion give warmth without anyone knowing why. A darker tea or a bitter root like gentian can replace the bitters.

Add the bitters and warmth a drop at a time, tasting as you go. If anyone can pick the chilli or the bitters, you've gone too far.

Here's every component and its job.

3. Refine

Then taste it, and be honest. Taste the finished drink carbonated, not the still base, because carbonation sharpens acidity and lightens body.

First, go back to the brief and use it as a checklist. Tick off each target, one by one. That's how you know you've achieved what you set out to do, and haven't missed anything.

Then go back to the five jobs alcohol used to do, and ask:

• Body → have we rebuilt the weight?
• Warmth → is there enough heat and persistence?
• Integration → does it taste like one drink?
• Aroma → is it lifted and persistent?
• Sweetness → does it feel round and smooth, not sharp?

We judge quality using the four measures wine is judged on:

• Balance → do sweetness, acid and bitterness hold each other in check?
• Length → how long does the flavour stay after swallowing?
• Intensity → is the flavour intense enough to stand up to food?
• Complexity → does each sip show more than one thing?

Last, two questions of our own. Does it stand as its own drink, not a stand-in? And is it right for the table it's going to?

If something's off, go back to the layer responsible. Don't fix it by adding another ingredient.

From there, the creativity is yours.

A recipe tells you what we made.

The system tells you why every component is there, which layer it serves and which technique makes it do that job.

And once you understand that, the ingredients can change.