The Stratford farmer who couldn't find a non-alcoholic gin that tasted like one, so he built Canada's first

The drink he couldn't find

Bob Huitema grew up on a farm near Stratford, Ontario and spent many years working in Toronto's food and beverage industry. Over that time he kept running into the same problem: he wanted to enjoy a well-crafted cocktail without the alcohol. Not a mocktail made of juice and soda. Not a flavoured sparkling water with a premium label. A spirit: something botanical, complex, distilled, with the same structural quality as a real gin. It did not exist in Canada in 2017.

So he went back to the farm and started experimenting. He spent time researching distillation, working with botanicals, and trying to produce a non-alcoholic gin that held up in a G&T rather than falling apart the moment ice was added. He found a craft distillery in Stratford willing to work with him. The result was Sobrii 0-Gin: Canada's first distilled non-alcoholic spirit.

What distilled actually means

The word distilled matters here more than it does in most product descriptions. There are two ways to make a non-alcoholic gin. You can blend botanical extracts, flavourings, and water to approximate the taste of gin, or you can actually distill a botanical spirit and then remove the alcohol. These produce very different results.

Sobrii uses the second approach. The botanical lineup reads like a craft gin spec: juniper berries, coriander, allspice, star anise. Then Ontario-grown Canadian ginseng, which is the ingredient that makes Sobrii distinctly Canadian rather than a copy of a European NA spirit. The result is a product that holds up in a real cocktail context. The gin and tonic test is the one that matters: does it taste like gin when mixed, or does it taste like something pretending to be gin? Sobrii passes.

The full Sobrii lineup has since expanded to include Sobrii 0-Tequila, Zero Paloma, and Zero G&T, each made with the same commitment: distilled, no artificial flavours, no sugars, no sweeteners, and no calories.

“Growing up on a farm near Stratford and spending many years in Toronto working in the food and beverage industry, Bob drew on his experience and began the journey to create Sobrii 0-Gin, Canada's first distilled non-alcoholic gin.”

Five Dragons, one deal

When Sobrii appeared on CBC's Dragon's Den, Bob brought the product and the story to five investors who had seen thousands of pitches. All five made offers. Getting one offer on Dragon's Den is a validation. Getting five means the Dragons were competing with each other for it.

Bob accepted the deal from Manjit Minhas, a Dragon with direct experience in the beverage industry and the distribution relationships that came with it. The episode put Sobrii in front of a national audience at a moment when the non-alcoholic spirits category was still largely invisible to mainstream Canadian shoppers. The timing mattered. The category has since grown significantly, and Sobrii had the head start, the brand recognition, and the proven product to capitalize on it.

Seven years before anyone was paying attention

Bob launched Sobrii in 2017, when the idea of a non-alcoholic gin barely registered as a category. There were no shelf sets. No dedicated sections at the LCBO. No articles telling him what the market wanted. He was building something because he personally needed it — and he had to talk a craft distillery in Stratford into taking the project seriously before any of it existed.

Those early years were a continuous feedback loop. Bob was at events, farmers' markets, and specialty bottle shops getting the product in front of people who had never tasted a non-alcoholic spirit before. A lot of conversations started with scepticism. The category had a bad reputation from watered-down mocktail mixes and flavoured sodas with aspirational labels. Changing that perception one bottle at a time, in a market that wasn't yet looking for what he was selling, is what the early Sobrii years actually looked like.

Why people love it

The people who find Sobrii tend to stay loyal to it. Not because they have run out of alternatives, but because it does the one thing that most non-alcoholic products cannot: it holds up in a real cocktail. A Sobrii G&T with good tonic and a lime actually tastes like a G&T. You can sit at a table with people drinking and feel like you are drinking with them, not watching from the outside.

That matters for a surprisingly wide group of people. Athletes who train seriously and avoid alcohol during their season. Parents who want to keep the ritual of a Friday evening cocktail without the consequences. People who are curious about reducing their drinking but not interested in going cold. People in recovery who miss the social experience of a drink without the substance. Bob built Sobrii for himself first, and it turns out the version of himself that wanted this is a lot of people.

What the press is saying

Where to actually buy Sobrii

Each link below goes directly to Sobrii on that retailer's site so you can add it to your cart without searching:

Bottom line

Sobrii is the kind of brand that is easy to underestimate until you understand the timeline. Bob Huitema started building this in 2017, when the entire category he was betting on barely existed in Canada. He built a product that actually tastes like what it claims to be, which is the hardest part of the non-alcoholic spirits challenge. He survived the years when no one was paying attention. And when Dragon's Den showed up, every Dragon in the room wanted a piece of it.

If you want to try it, the best place to start is directly from sobrii.ca, where the full lineup ships across Canada.