Producer
Background
Ruben Van Aken is one of three co-founders of A.I.R. Distillations, the Belgian alcohol-free distillery based in Hoboken, Antwerp, which he founded with Alexander Scott Jones and Ina Simone Averhals. He has prior experience in distilling and in making non-alcoholic beverages. The company's name carries a double reading: it is an acronym for the founding team — Alexandre, Ina and Ruben — and a reference to the volatile air component in which flavour molecules are extracted from botanicals during distillation.[1]
Van Aken is entirely self-taught in distillation, with no formal training. He is likewise self-taught in recipe development, having learned through experimentation, through collaboration with a botanical farmer working near the production site, and by backing his work with data and laboratory testing. Ina Simone Averhals describes him as having a "crazy parallel mind" — an intuitive, experimental approach to botanical distillation.
Before A.I.R., Van Aken co-founded the non-alcoholic distillery Bôtan with Ina Simone Averhals. A.I.R. Distillations characterises Bôtan as the first non-alcoholic distillery to be field-to-bottle and completely free of additives and artificial flavours at the time of its founding. The venture ran three years of research followed by two years on the market — five years of work in total — before the founders lost control of the company through investor disputes. Averhals and Van Aken then spent roughly a year regrouping before launching A.I.R. Distillations with Alexander Scott Jones, who had already placed a non-alcoholic drink of his own in many Michelin-starred restaurants.[2],[3]
Van Aken and Alexander Scott Jones have been exploring distillation techniques and botanicals together since 2018. The founding impulse behind A.I.R. traces to the natural wine movement: Van Aken and Averhals spent years in wine, developed a love-hate relationship with alcohol, and channelled that tension into botanical distillates conceived as an alternative. Van Aken is also Averhals' partner in private life, a relationship of twelve years as of a February 2026 interview.[4]
Role & Contribution
As of a February 2026 interview, A.I.R. Distillations was bootstrapped, with Averhals working full-time at another company and Van Aken and Alexandre Scott Jones working part-time alongside running the distillery — a deliberate strategy to validate market reach before seeking investment. Van Aken was also exploring the fermentation of tea as part of the company's research into combining botanical distillates with fermentation techniques.
Collaborations
Van Aken works closely with a botanical farmer near A.I.R.'s production site, who grows specific plants to the distillery's specifications; that collaboration is one of the routes through which he developed his recipe work.