Spiced Cane

Dominican sugar cane is the starting point, which is why this reads darker and richer than most alcohol free rum alternatives. Chocolate and coffee come through on the nose, and the palate is sweet, earthy and more layered than the category usually manages, with tonka bean and spice sitting in the back. It is built for the drinks where dark rum does the heavy lifting. An espresso martini is the obvious call, and it holds its shape in winter mixes with ginger or spiced apple. Fluère is an Amsterdam producer that runs each botanical through hydro steam distillation on its own before blending the distillates together, a slower process than a single combined run. Tunnel pasteurisation gives the sealed bottle around two years of shelf life.