It’s officially 2026 and cutting back on alcohol no longer needs an explanation. On the contrary, these days booze-free bar menus are rife, zebra striping (alternating alcoholic and non-alcoholic tipples) is second nature to many, and plenty of alcohol-free brands – such as Tom Holland’s AF beer, Beero – struggle to stay in stock.
Alcohol-free wines, beers and spirits have grown up fast, shedding their watery reputation in favour of robust flavour. But the next frontier goes further than taste. The question is, can a drink deliver alcohol’s sociable lift without the groggy head or next-day regret?
That idea has long preoccupied David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London and co-founder of GABA Labs. Since 2016, the former drug tsar – famously sacked after stating that cannabis, ecstasy and LSD were less harmful than alcohol – has been working on a synthetic alternative designed to replicate alcohol’s euphoric effects without the hangover.
In 2021, GABA Labs launched Sentia Spirits, the world’s first plant-based, botanical-powered spirits with 0% ABV that supposedly still make you tipsy. “It’s a drink that is based on the science of alcohol, particularly the low doses of alcohol that relax you and make you more sociable,” Nutt tells The Independent.
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Sentia is what Nutt calls a “GABA spirit”. GABA, or gamma-aminobutyric acid, to give it its full name, is an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain that produces a calming effect. When you’re drinking an alcoholic beverage, those alcohol molecules bind to GABA receptors and cause the sedative, relaxing effects of GABA to be enhanced.
Scientists (including Nutt) have long since looked at herbs such as valerian root and their impact on GABA. “We’ve spent years researching the biochemistry of herbs to find ones which contain GABA molecules, and also those which have a track record of producing relaxation and calming effects,” Nutt explains.
By combining various GABA-enhancing and GABA-promoting herbs and botanicals into a concoction, Nutt says he and the team have been able to develop an “effective alternative to drinking low levels of alcohol”. Essentially, it’s an alcohol-free drink that’ll make you comfortable enough to spill secrets, smooth out a hard day’s wrinkles and ease yourself into the evening.
Sentia makes three different spirits. Sentia red was the brand’s first spirit, released in 2022. It’s the drink you turn to when you need to relax on a Wednesday night or are looking for a first date drink. Featuring different herbs as well as the core GABA ingredient, Sentia black was released in 2023 and is a more stimulating drink to help boost your productivity. Sentia gold, the latest of the spirits, was released in 2024, and is the drink for social occasions – it’s more of an uplifting drink compared to the relaxing red,
Does it work for everyone? “It depends on people’s varying sensitivity,” Nutt says. “There is evidence that your GABA system becomes a bit less sensitive when you drink a lot of alcohol, and if you’re a heavy drinker, to be honest, you may not get much of an effect at all.”
But effective as it may or may not be, Sentia isn’t the ultimate goal, merely a stopgap on the way to finding a GABA-enhancing ingredient that mimics the positive effects of alcohol. A molecule Nutt calls alcarelle is what he hopes will, in the future, be something that can be licensed to drinks companies so they can add it to non-alcoholic beers, spirits and wines. “That’s a big challenge,” he says. “We’ve made molecules that perform that function but we haven’t yet optimised the one we want to take through to food and safety testing.”
CBD-infused soft drinks such as Trip and Oto have also been taking off in the past few years, though Sentia claims that, while CBD drinks and Sentia perform the same task (using neurotransmitters in the brain to relax you), the quantities available in CBD drinks aren’t enough to give you the same effects as Sentia or, in the future, alcarelle.
GABA Labs says it hopes to complete FDA testing of alcarelle in the US by 2026, with the ingredient available to purchase by 2027. Until then, for those trying to give up alcohol, Sentia’s blend of botanical spirits could be the solution.
But does it really work? Did it make us tipsy? And how does it taste? We put it to the test to see if non-alcoholic GABA-powered drinks are the future.
How we tested
I tested Sentia in place of a normal drink, using it across a few evenings rather than treating it as a one-off novelty. Each spirit was tried neat and mixed, paying close attention to how it tasted, how it felt to drink and whether the effects were noticeable enough to justify reaching for a second glass. You can find a longer list of my testing criteria further down.
Sentia Black
Size: 50cl
Ingredients: Ginseng, rhodiola, schisandra, saffron, black pepper and more
Flavour: Dark, spiced botanicals with a bitter, slightly peppery finish
Effect: Uplifting and focus-enhancing, said to boost energy and mental clarity
Why we love it
- It actually did make us squiffy
Take note
- Weird medicinal taste
- Looks like tar in a bottle
While Sentia says drinking its spirits alone will still make you feel relaxed, drinking Sentia with friends will increase the effect. “Social interaction in itself brings out warmth in you, so, once you’ve got over that threshold of anxiety to start communicating, the communication itself probably releases some GABA as well, so you get a double whammy,” Nutt explains. So, to try it out, I took it to one of my game nights.
“That looks like tar”. Those were the first words that left a mate’s mouth as I brought Sentia black out of my bag and plopped it down in the middle of the table.
They aren’t wrong. Sentia black is a tar-black concoction in a beautiful potion-like bottle that could have been nicked from the set of a Harry Potter film. It had a pretty earthy, muddy smell when I unscrewed the lid, and it tasted about the same as it looked.
To be honest, I found it tasted pretty horrific on its own, and only slightly better when paired with a mixer. It’s got a bitter medicinal flavour that stuck in my mouth long after I’d swigged it down. A strong, spicy taste with a hint of liquorice. No one in my group particularly enjoyed the taste, though mixing it with ginger beer helped it go down.
It did, however, work. After 10 minutes, I felt a bit of a buzz. You know that slightly woozy feeling, and that head high you get when you’ve just kicked back a gin and tonic. It was good – I felt relaxed, chatty and surprised at the results. The effect wore off in about 40 minutes, but pouring another 25ml shot kept it going. It never made us drunk, just a bit tipsy, and I had zero side effects the morning after. Tastes horrible, but it worked for us.
Buy now £32, Amazon.co.uk
Sentia red
Size: 50cl
Ingredients: Passionflower, magnolia bark, valerian root, hawthorn berry, clove and more
Flavour: Deep berry notes with herbal and spiced undertones
Effect: Relaxing and mellow, designed for unwinding and social ease
Why we love it
- Lovely fruity taste
- Made us feel relaxed
Ah, now that looks more appetising. Sentia red has a really lovely rouge hue, and, as it’s aimed at helping drinkers unwind, I decided to pour myself a glass after work one Friday night.
There’s a lovely berry scent when you pop open the bottle. Pouring a splash into a glass (I didn’t want to go the full 25ml straightaway, for fear of hating the taste), I was pleasantly surprised. The flavour is a little tangy, fruity and quite strong, but there’s a huge depth in terms of the flavour, and I wanted more.
I poured another, and it just got better with each sip. I tried it with some tonic and lemonade, and it paired nicely with both. A really delicious drink. Did it work? Surprisingly, it did make us feel a little more relaxed, with a bit of lightness in the shoulders. That slight sense of composure you get with your first few sips from your poison of choice.
Again, the effects lasted about an hour, but that was enough to help us unwind at the end of the day. Tasty, masses of flavour and, best of all, it does its job.
Buy now £32, Amazon.co.uk
Sentia gold
Ingredients: Bitter orange, turmeric, ashwagandha, ginkgo, gentian root and more
Flavour: Bitter orange with bright citrus and earthy spiced undertones
Effect: Social and mood-lifting, designed to enhance connection and conversation
Why we love it
- Made us feel more chatty
- Some will like the orange citrusy flavour
Take note
- Wish it were slightly less bitter
A year after reviewing Sentia red and Sentia black, I’m back at another game night with the same group of friends to put the brand’s latest concoction – Sentia gold – to the test. Now, this one is the real social drink. While Sentia black was all about boosting focus and productivity, gold is meant to bring warmth and connection to the table – something to sip on while catching up with mates.
Taste-wise, it’s like a mix of both red and black but with a more citrusy kick. On its own, it’s got a strong bitter orange juice flavour. Not the freshly squeezed kind, but more like the cheap supermarket own-brand version, blended with earthy spiced notes from its root-based ingredients. As with the other Sentia drinks, it definitely works best mixed with tonic or a splash of fresh juice.
Not everyone was sold on the flavour. Some found the bitter, GABA-enhancing ingredients a bit too intense, while others felt it didn’t quite taste as nice as its golden, mango-like hue made it look. But when it came to effects, it delivered. It felt like a stronger version of Sentia red. About half an hour in, the whole room got a lot chattier, conversation flowed more easily and the general vibe felt more lifted.
It’s definitely more potent than the others in the range, and if you’re into orange juice with an earthy twist, you might just like it. It’ll loosen up the room for sure.
Buy now £32, Amazon.co.uk
Do Sentia non-alcoholic spirits rival real alcohol?
Sceptical as I might’ve been, Sentia’s non-alcoholic spirits did make me feel a little squiffy. While Sentia black tasted pretty horrendous, with a spicy, medicinal flavour that overpowered most mixers, it did give me that slightly woozy feeling you get when you have your first or second pint.
If you want something that tastes quite nice, Sentia red is a fruity drink that relaxed me almost as well as half a glass of wine, though, its effects didn’t quite last as long. If I compare it to CBD soft drinks such as Trip, Sentia performs better. While Trip did make me feel a little bit relaxed, it was slightly dampened.
Sentia gold had the biggest effect in terms of potency – making me feel more chatty, more social and more relaxed. It didn’t taste as awful as Sentia black, but also not as nice as Sentia red. If you like citrusy flavours or bitter orange, this might be your drink.
Sentia could definitely taste better but, as David Nutt explains, these are proof of concept drinks: “We didn’t set out to be a drinks company,” he says. In the future, we imagine the Guinness and Jack Daniels of the world pairing the taste of your favourite bevvy with a synthetic product like alcarelle, giving people the positive feelings gained from drinking alcohol. Except without the hangover.
How were Sentia non-alcoholic spirits tested
I tried all three Sentia spirits – red, black and gold – across a handful of evenings, drinking them the way most people would if they were swapping out alcohol. That meant sipping the spirits after work and with friends, rather than in a controlled or overly scientific setting. Each one was tasted neat and with mixers, with a close eye on flavour, feel and whether the promised effects actually showed up. Specifically, I considered the following:
Why you can trust IndyBest reviews
Alex Lee has been writing for IndyBest for five years and, in that time, has garnered a breadth of experience reviewing food, drink and kitchen accessories, from the Ninja crispi to Aldi’s ready meal curries. He works as a product reviewer day-in, day-out, so he knows how to critique alcohol-free alternatives and situate them among competitors – above, you’ll find what he thought of Sentia’s offering.
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