Ben Branson, the founder of Seedlip, has announced the launch of Sylva, a non-alcoholic distillery and maturation lab located in his Essex home. Branson has led the research, experimentation and development of the project, along with Jack Wareing.
Sylva has developed a process to extract the character from a selection of wood and cereals to create small-batch, made-to-order dark spirits without the use of alcohol.
The star of Sylva’s first release is Padauk, a West African wood known for its red-orange bark, aromatic pungency and rich history. Red oak from the lab’s own forest has been selected for its unique qualities, as well as single malt American oak barrel staves from Nc’nean in Scotland.
Rye has been used to complement this as the hero cereal, with the peppery, nutty and spicy notes for the drink extracted through methods including malted rye extraction, toasted rye vacuum distillation, and gravity percolation.
Commenting on the launch, Branson said: “I come from a family of grain growers, woodworkers, inventors and timber merchants, so Sylva is a very special project both personally and professionally. I am excited to celebrate wood’s unique and diverse flavours by championing innovative extraction and maturation techniques at so we can break new ground on what dark non-alcoholic spirits can be.”
Sylva has a commitment to explore the full flavour potential of traditional barrel wood and grain varieties, as well as trees not used before in spirits. Methods utilised include sonic maturation, vacuum distillation and vacuum kiln roasting.
Sylva’s first release Padauk will be available to pre-order from 12 September, on their website. It is priced at £40 per 500ml bottle, with an ABV of <0.5%.
