NON

The idea for NON was born in November 2017, after Aaron Trotman and his wife Miranda visited fine-dining restaurants in Europe and experienced temperance pairings, including one at The Clove Club in London. Trotman noticed that the non-alcoholic mocktails at Michelin-starred restaurants were often more creative and interesting than the fine-wine pairings Miranda received. Earlier travels shaped the outlook: inspired by Anthony Bourdain, Trotman began traveling the world with Miranda in 2010 in search of the best food they could find.^[1],[2]

NON originated from a small kitchen in Melbourne. To formulate the right combination of ingredients, Trotman drew on his earlier experience developing cosmetics. After three months and 50 iterations, he developed his initial product and tested it by bringing bottles to restaurants in his car. The brand launched in July 2019.^[1],[3]

NON initially marketed to Australian fine-dining restaurants before expanding focus to the US market. According to the Business of Drinks podcast, NON bootstrapped initially, then received a $100,000 investment from co-founder Josh, who had a hit song. The same source reports that NON raised significant capital in February 2021 after nearly running out of money, with Trotman borrowing $20,000 from a staff member to cover the last payroll before the investment closed. In 2023, NON opened NONHQ, described by the company as the world's first alcohol-free cellar door.^{[1],[2],[3],[4]}

Aaron Trotman — Founder. Aaron Trotman is the founder of NON, a serial entrepreneur from Melbourne, Australia, who describes himself as a 'food explorer' and has a background in luxury products and a passion for fine dining. His background is in consumer packaged goods in the cosmetics industry rather than the culinary world. Before founding NON, he worked as a DJ for ten years, owned barbershops, and ran a men's hipster cosmetics brand. His mentor was the late Richard Gonano, the cosmetic chemist behind brands including Aesop and Kevin Murphy. Trotman was named a Trailblazer in Drinks Producers, Retailers, Advocates by Melbourne Food & Wine at Maison Bâtard. He also spent five years developing the NON Stopper to prevent waste and maintain product freshness after being unable to find a suitable market solution.^[1],[3]

Kitchen & Beverage Team. NON's production process was designed by a team including chefs, bartenders, food scientists, and winemakers, which the company refers to as its team of alchemists. Nick Cozens, Head of Kitchen, has a background as a chef and cocktail bartender. NON's head of beverage, Nick, oversees recipe development and production scaling from bench-top to 7,500-litre tanks.^[2],[5]

Ben — Chief Growth Officer. NON's Chief Growth Officer, Ben, is a former Treasury Wine Estates executive who served as CMO of the Southern Hemisphere for Treasury. As of the February 2025 Business of Drinks podcast interview, NON had a team of 15 people in Australia and 3 in the US, with plans to add five to six more US staff within three months.^[3]

NON builds non-alcoholic beverages from scratch using real ingredients to replace ethanol, rather than dealcoholizing wine. The beverages are designed from real ingredients using culinary techniques rather than simply removing alcohol, and NON does not use conventional winemaking methods such as pressing, fermentation, or ageing. NON positions its beverages as zero-alcohol wine alternatives and food-pairable drinks for the dining table, coining the term 'wine alternative' as a category descriptor. The company describes its products as 'infusion blends' that define their own category, distinct from alcohol-free wine, while sharing complexity and balance of flavours.^[1],[2],[6]

NON prioritises local Australian ingredients wherever possible and uses only natural ingredients, never artificial ones. Its techniques and ingredients have been influenced by European fine-dining kitchens. Each product went through approximately 30 to 40 iterations to get the flavors right before scaling. NON has a strong on-trade focus and is positioned on the wine list at restaurants, targeting fine-dining and sommelier-driven occasions.^[7],[8]

NON's branding is intentionally dark, minimal, and space-age in aesthetic, with the color of the drink as the primary visual hero in photography, and no wood or pastoral imagery on its Instagram. The branding was developed by a Melbourne-based agency called The Company You Keep.^[3]

The first three products were NON1 (Salted Raspberry & Chamomile), NON2 (Caramelised Pear & Kombu), and NON3 (Toasted Cinnamon & Yuzu). NON1 is NON's bestseller, making up 45% of global volume. NON8 Torched Apple & Oolong, the eighth release in the range, was NON's first new expression since the brand launched, released in 2023 and developed over two years in close collaboration with Head of Kitchen Nick Cozens; it joined seven existing bottles that had been eighteen months in the making.^[2],[3]

NON also sells curated multi-bottle packs including The Spice Set, The Spring Set, The Everyday Set, The Stopper Set, a Mixed 6 Pack, and a Mixed 6 Stopper Pack. Each bottle is certified vegan and gluten-free and made from plant-based ingredients.^[4],[9]

NON's key wine-alternative formula is built around four flavor markers: fruit, tannin, salt, and acid. Whole fruits and vegetables serve as the lead taste pillars in each infusion blend; tea or spices and fruit skins supply tannin; Murray River salt or olive brine supplies salinity; and verjus supplies acidity. The company follows a perfumery approach, cooking layers of flavors into a verjus base, and preparing a single batch can take days in the kitchen.^[7]

Kitchen-derived methods & processing. NON's production process is based on fine-dining kitchen techniques, spanning roasting, stewing, macerating, steeping and brewing, toasting, and sous vide. On the Business of Drinks podcast, Trotman described a broader process using roasting, sous vide, dehydration, hot extraction, pasteurization, and cold-tank finishing in a 7,500-litre tank. NON8's development took skin-contact wines and apple flavours as reference points.^{[3],[5],[10],[11]}

NON collaborated with Proud Mary Coffee, a Melbourne-based coffee roaster. For NON8, NON worked with Mock Red Hill orchard on the Mornington Peninsula, which supplied orchard apples.^[2],[12]

NON collaborated with Maison Balzac to produce a limited edition 0% beverage featuring mandarin, lemon thyme, and rosemary, developed to pair with an autumn roasted pumpkin and sourdough dish. NON published a recipe by chef Matt Stone for Fermented Brown Rice with Mushrooms & Kale on 16 August 2022.^[13],[14]

The NON Stopper. The NON Stopper is a non-mechanical bottle carbonation stopper designed by NON in collaboration with Vert Industrial Design House. It is made from nickel-plated 304 stainless steel and food-grade silicone, fits all NON bottles and most other crown-capped glass bottles, and has a patent-pending design. NON says it preserves carbonation and freshness for up to 7 days when kept cold. On the Business of Drinks podcast, Trotman described a proprietary stopper called the 'snopper,' developed through approximately 20 iterations from 3D printing to final mold and made from roughly 80% aluminium and 20% other materials with a rubber seal.^[3],[4],[15]

The NON Stopper won a Gold Award at Australia's International Good Design Awards for Excellence in Design and Innovation. Onya Magazine reports that NON won three major international accolades in four months, including Gold at the Sommeliers Choice Awards in Chicago.^[12],[16]

NON is poured by the glass at Michelin-starred restaurants including The Fat Duck in the UK and The French Laundry in the US. Ben Branson of Seedlip described NON as his favorite wine alternative and the brand he is most excited about.^[8],[16]