Major spirits companies are pivoting away from dedicated low & no brands in favour of 0.0% versions of their own flagship brands.
Despite being early backers of low & no challenger brands such as Seedlip, Everleaf and Ceder’s, Diageo and Pernod Ricard are now instead throwing their weight behind alcohol-free iterations of brands such as Gordon’s, Captain Morgan and Beefeater.
Ceder’s – the distilled, non-alcoholic beverage created by husband-and-wife duo Craig Hutchison and Maria Sehlstrom and acquired by Pernod Ricard in 2021 – appears to have been mothballed.
It is not available to purchase on the brand’s dedicated DTC website or via Pernod Ricard’s The Whisky Exchange platform. Although it remains stocked on Amazon, off-trade sales in the past year amounted to just £20k [NIQ 52 w/e 19 April 2025].
Asked if the brand had been discontinued, Pernod Ricard declined to comment.
However, the Paris-headquartered group is preparing to launch Beefeater 0.0, an alcohol-free version of its London dry gin, in the UK later this year. The tipple debuted in Spain in January 2024.
Diageo, meanwhile, has offloaded its shareholding in Everleaf, a non-alcoholic aperitif launched by Paul Matthews in 2018. The brand’s sales have fallen by 30.8% to just £29k [NIQ].
Everleaf received investment from Diageo as part of its Distill Ventures incubator in 2019, but that programme has since been wound down. Distill Ventures ceased to own shares in Everleaf’s trading company London Botanical Drinks last month, filings at Companies House showed.
The London-based drinks giant retains ownership of Seedlip, but sales of the non-alcoholic spirit – stocked by Waitrose and on Ocado – have declined by £37.6% to £758k [NIQ].
By contrast, alcohol-free variants from Gordon’s, Tanqueray and Captain Morgan – all owned by Diageo – are in growth. Combined, Gordon’s 0.0, Tanqueray 0.0 and Captain Morgan Spiced Gold 0.0% have added £272k and are now worth £12.4m [NIQ].
Approached by The Grocer, Diageo confirmed it no longer owned a stake in Everleaf, but declined to comment further.
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