Brooklyn-based distiller St. Agrestis recently introduced its first ready-to-drink non alcoholic cocktail, known as “Phony Negroni.” The product is lightly carbonated and is packaged in a 6.8 ounce glass bottle. 

St. Agrestis has made a name for itself by creating a line of top notch aperitivos, amaros and ready-to-drink cocktails (in glass, can, and box formats), but Phony Negroni is the company’s first effort in the red-hot non-alcoholic cocktail space. The product is very much cut from the same cloth as the other St. Agrestis products in both flavor and packaging – minus the booze, of course.

Let’s start with the packaging: Phony Negroni gets the same design that St. Agrestis has been using for its RTD cocktails, starting with the eye-catching cone shaped glass bottle. Further adding to the visual appeal is the backdrop created by the bright red color of the liquid, which is definitely the right color for a negroni and the product definitely appeals to the senses. The final result is really beautiful.

The bottle features two labels, which is another component that mimics the rest of St. Agrestis’s product line. First, there’s a smaller metallic label at the top which houses the St. Agrestis logo, followed by a second larger label that sits near the bottom of the bottle. This label contains the product’s logo in white on a purple background as well as a purple and yellow background.

When it comes to flavor, the bright red liquid not only looks the part of a negroni but it also tastes pretty close to the real thing. It has just the right amount of herbal flavor and bitterness compared with its spirits-based counterpart, which, in our opinion, is the most important flavor component that needs to be mimicked. There’s some sweetness to the product, thanks to the addition of sugar (15 grams) and allulose, which definitely feels a tad stronger than it might need to be. 

The added carbonation is something  of a twist from the original and is supposed to help recreate the alcohol flavor by adding some pop to the drink’s bitterness. It certainly does not recreate the burn of alcohol, but it helps bridge the gap while also giving the product some depth.

In the end, we’re big fans of what St. Agrestis has created with Phony Negroni. It’s a great approximation of what you’d get from a legit negroni  that’s also both visually appealing and really enjoyable to drink. Right out of the gate, it’s definitely one of the better non-alcoholic mocktails out there and one of the few that has managed to successfully translate a spirit forward cocktail into a booze-free beverage.