As we’ve reported recently, the global spirits marketplace is facing some headwinds, with sales and profits dropping and companies pausing production at some of their distilleries. One reason that is often given is that people are just drinking less, particularly younger people, but apparently that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are turning to non-alcoholic spirits instead. This week, Wilderton Aperitivo, which made one of the best NA spirits on the market, announced that it is closing its distillery and will not be making any new products, and we spoke to one of the founders to find out more.

Brad Whiting and Seth O’Malley founded Wilderton back in in 2019, both veterans of the spirits industry: Whiting worked with Pendleton Whiskey and Clear Creek Distillery, while O’Malley worked at the now-closed Townsend Distillery. It was part of Diageo’s Distil Ventures, an incubator that funded smaller brands while allowing Diageo to acquire a stake. But the program was shuttered last March, which Whiting told Robb Report had a negative impact on Wilderton’s funding.

According to KOIN, a new channel in Portland, Oregon, Wilderton’s founders said they decided to found an NA brand not because they were against alcohol, but because they wanted to make a spirit that could be used to make spirit-free cocktails at social events. To that end, they focused on amaro, which is one of the reasons why Wilderton was a success. Brands that make NA versions of tequila and whiskey usually wind up with a product that tastes overly sweet and nothing like the original spirit, while amaro can be built around the same botanicals that might be used to create the original boozy version.

Wilderton’s main lineup consisted of two NA spirits that were produced at the Hood River distillery which opened in 2023—Bittersweet and Citrus, both made using four different extraction techniques, including distillation, from a variety of different botanicals. But seven years later, they are calling it quits, citing a “historically difficult business funding/financing environment,” according to KOIN. “We… will forever remain proud of the role we played in building awareness and quality expectations of the non-alcoholic spirits category,” Whiting and O’Malley told the station.

We reached out to Whiting, and he says the reasons for closing the distillery are complicated. “People are quick to jump just to a binary alc vs. non-alc lens, but it is far more complicated than that,” he explains. Whiting points to the use of the term “functional” for NA spirits as being a fuzzy term that is often used without real meaning attached to it. “While, in my opinion, many brands’ ‘function’ claims are not scientifically valid, it remains a wild west of attractive buzz words and ingredients without anyone calling BS,” he said. “With ‘functional’ marketing spanning drink categories and price positioning from sodas to supplement beverages, the winners will have easy-to-understand natural ingredients and true efficacy. And then there is THC—regulatory challenges aside, this is the most dynamic sector of the non-alc market right now.  What’s next, psilocybin in five years?”

Wilderton’s website is now completely sold out of both of its core products, and will not be replenished. But you can still find bottles at retailers across the West Coast until supplies run out.