RSRV Collective is a line of RTD non-alcoholic cocktails that are packaged in 12 ounce cans and available in four flavors: Amari, Rosata, Botanica and Grana.

The products have a simple, non-functional list of ingredients including carbonated water, natural flavors, juice (5%) and cane sugar. Each comes in at between 50 and 60 calories and 11 - 13 grams of sugar. Given that these drinks target a purely adult demographic, this level of calories and sugar is definitely a good thing.

As mentioned above, the products do not contain anything that’s trying to replace the alcohol. There aren’t any added ingredients or functional claims, so RSRV is simply trying to win people over with adult flavor profiles that mimics what you’d find in a cocktail.  Sometimes less is more, and that’s clearly what RSRV is hoping for.

So let’s talk about the liquid.  All four varieties are complex and offer their own unique flavor profiles.  There’s Rosata, which has a sweet and sour cherry flavor.  Amari gives a nod to Italian aperitifs with notes of herbs, spices, and a bitter finish. As the name suggests, Botanica relies heavily on botanical notes and was inspired by a gin and tonic.  Finally, there’s Orana which has hints of sweet citrus and wormwood, the latter of which provides some bitterness to balance the otherwise sweet flavor.

In the end, we like all four of the SKUs and honestly there isn’t anything that we’d change. We appreciate the variety that they’ve created while also managing to have be consistent across the range. From a taste perspective, these are definitely some of the better tasting RTD non-alc cocktails that we’ve sampled. 

Packaging is a sleek 12 ounce can with a matte finish label that uses dark red and brown hues to give each variety its own background color. The colors themselves can’t easily be used to distinguish one SKU from another. However, there are really only two other elements of substance on the front of the label so it’s ultimately easy to figure out which SKU is which.  The first of these elements is a white outline image of an eye with a pattern of leaves emanating from it. Beneath this is the flavor name which was designed to look like the letters were drawn freehand with a large paintbrush.

You’ll notice that we haven’t mentioned the brand logo and any sort of product tagline or statement.  The brand name is listed beneath the flavor name but is extremely small and we think that “RSRV Kensho Cocktail” could be mistaken as a product statement (note that there is a larger brand callout on the side of the can). Down at the very bottom of the front panel you’ll find small and narrow lettering that says “non-alcoholic.”

While the end result is clean and eye-catching, we think that more prominent branding will be required if RSRV wants to build brand loyalty.  This look is very understated and might make the drink more suitable for on-premise than off-premise, but even so we think that RSRV should do more to try to establish itself in the increasingly crowded non-alc category.

One additional thing that would help: something that helps the consumer understand what each SKU is supposed to taste like. Much like the brand name, this is on the side of the can and, in the case of flavor description copy, is buried in a paragraph of small text.

Overall, RSRV Kensho Cocktails feature some truly top notch liquid and can hold their own against any non-alc RTD cocktail line out there today. However, we think they’ve underestimated the need to build their brand on the packaging and to more clearly describe what the product is to a potential consumer. If they can address these things, we think this brand could really have some legs.