NON5 Lemon Marmalade & Hibiscus

NON5 Lemon Marmalade & Hibiscus is one of the editions in NON's core range. NON describes its products as "infusion blends" that define their own category, distinct from alcohol-free wine while sharing complexity and balance of flavours, and the company credits founder Aaron Trotman with coining the term "wine alternative" as a category descriptor. The beverages are positioned as zero-alcohol, food-pairable drinks for the dining table.^{[1],[2],[3],[4]}

Rather than dealcoholizing wine, NON builds its drinks from whole ingredients using kitchen techniques: roasting, stewing, macerating, steeping and brewing, toasting, and sous vide, alongside dehydration, hot extraction, pasteurisation and cold tank finishing. The company states it does not use conventional winemaking methods such as pressing, fermentation, or ageing, and characterises its approach as cooking flavour in with real food in contrast to non-alcoholic wine, which it says cooks the flavour out. Each product is built around four structural components — an acid component from verjuice, a fruit component, a tannin component, and salinity — a formula NON also frames as the flavour markers of fruit, tannin, salt and acid.

Declared Ingredients. The declared ingredient list is water, verjus, sugar, lemon verbena, lemongrass, hibiscus, lemon myrtle, liquorice root, peppermint, salt, and hops. NON's own description of the edition names lemon verbena, lemon myrtle, preserved lemon, hibiscus and citra hop as its components.^[5],[6]

Lemon Verbena, Lemon Myrtle & Preserved Lemon — Citrus Core. Lemon verbena and lemon myrtle appear in both accounts of the composition; preserved lemon is named in NON's own description of the edition.^[6]

Hibiscus — Named Flavour Pillar. Hibiscus is one of the two components named on the bottle and is present in the declared ingredient list.^[6]

Hops — Tannin. The blend is dry-hopped with Eclipse hops and spices to provide tannin. Citra hop is named among the ingredients in NON's description of the edition, and hops appear in the declared list.^[5]

Lemongrass, Liquorice Root & Peppermint — Supporting Botanicals. Lemongrass, liquorice root and peppermint are declared alongside the citrus and hibiscus components.^[5]

Salt — Salinity. Salt is declared in the ingredient list. NON identifies Murray River salt as a key local ingredient in its blends, using salt or olive brine to supply the salinity component of its structure.

Sugar — Declared Ingredient. Sugar is listed third in the declared ingredient list.^[5]

Glassware. NON bottles its drinks in wine bottles and intends them to be served in a wine glass.

Shelf Life. NON produces a non-mechanical bottle stopper, designed in collaboration with Vert Industrial Design House, that fits all NON bottles and most other crown-capped glass bottles; the company states it preserves carbonation and freshness for up to seven days when kept cold.

Specifications. NON5 sits within NON's chef-crafted range of alcohol-free wine alternatives, which the company states are 0.0% ABV.

• Category: infusion blend / wine alternative (producer's terms)
• ABV: 0.0% across the NON range
• Format: 750 ml glass bottle, crown capsule closure rather than a twist top

Production. Production takes place at NONHQ, NON's cellar door and specialist facility in Cheltenham, Victoria, a purpose-built cooking facility in Melbourne where a team of chefs roast, toast, steep and extract flavour from whole ingredients including fruit, herbs, spices and teas. The process was designed by a team of chefs, bartenders, food scientists and winemakers, and NON says preparing a single batch can take days in the kitchen. Because natural ingredients are used, NON advises that its beverages may show natural sediment and slight variances in colour and profile.

Ingredients Policy. Each NON bottle is certified vegan and gluten-free and made from plant-based ingredients. The company states it uses only natural ingredients and never artificial ones, avoids flavour houses and artificial flavouring, and lists every ingredient of each infusion blend on the bottle label, with every ingredient named on the front label present and tasteable in the drink. NON prioritises local Australian ingredients wherever possible and is HACCP (PASIP) certified, recording all critical control points in production.