Free Spirits - Non-Alcoholic Tequila Alternative - Award-Winning - The Spirit of Tequila - Low Calorie, Low Sugar, Vegan, Gluten-Free, Mood Lifting Vitamins -750ml

This was my first experience with a non-alcoholic, gluten-free beverage since I decided to stop drinking years ago. I still appreciate the flavor, so I was excited to try this one, and I was truly impressed by its bold taste. While it was a bit spicy for my wife, I found it perfectly enjoyable, and I’m looking forward to sipping it straight. Now I can fully enjoy the flavor without any of the effects of alcohol.

I really enjoyed the free spirits Gin, and had high hopes for the Tequila. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Immediately upon pouring all I could smell was bananas. I figured I had to be imagining that, so I mixed up a margarita. Nope, it tasted like bananas as well and was sweet, no smoke or spicy flavors that the other reviews mention. I did notice some specks floating around in the bottle when I went back and looked at the bottle after I tossed the unintentional banana-rita. I don't know if that had anything to do with the sweet banana smell and taste though. Maybe this was just a bad batch of product or something, but definitely not worth the cost to get a second bottle to see if it isn't bananas. tl;dr version Gin - good! Tequila - bad bananas!

If you like spicy smoky n/a margaritas, then this is the right tequila alternative for you. If spicy isn’t your jam, I’d steer clear. This gets its “bite” from a bit of heat at the end. It’s definitely a little smoky too. Biggest drawback for me is its texture - it doesn’t have the same feel as true tequila, but in a mixed drink that doesn’t matter.

Stand alone, it's got a peppery kinda after-bite, but absolutely no flavor/ character. It MIGHT be good as a peppery mixer behind the scenes, but it bears no commonality with tequila. Might be good for NA bloody mary's.

Nose of smoke, apples and banana come through on Free Spirits'Spirit of Tequila. Taste is quite smoky and the pepper burn is quite pronounced (and I love spicy, but this is a bit much for me). In a margarita (using Lyre's Orange sec, doubling the amount of both compared to the standard recipe, which in my experimentation is sometimes about right for using these alternatives) it just doesn't stand out. The pepper burn is there and the smokiness kind of comes through, but I get nothing reminiscent of agave or a true tequila in this. Compared to Ritual this one just doesn't do it for me and doesn't remind me of tequila much at all. There's an aftertaste to it is strongly banana, ore maybe similar to vanilla that's just gone... off. Some of the alternatives don't have that smokiness in them, though, so I have tried mixing it with other alternatives to add that in, but overall it still misses the mark for me and doesn't seem to mix well that way at all, to my taste. I might note here that The Sober Barkeep rates this a 5 of 5 and his review says he loves to drink this neat, so there is a definite difference in taste there. I've since seen other reviews on this and even asked other folks about the strong banana in this and while I have seen a few other people mention this many of the great reviews for this either do not mention it or, when I've asked, state they don't get any kind of banana smell from it at all. It's entirely possible I got a bad batch here, or that it had a longer exposure in storage to, say, sunlight and/or heat which changed the character of the product. As such I can only suggest that my rating may not be consistent with that of others but it does speak to a potential issue of quality control or at least a level of consistency in the product, so that may be something to keep in mind here.