Our Craft · How Luba Is Made
Anyone can put flavoring in sparkling water and call it a mocktail. Luba starts with real fruit juice, then leaves out the preservative that almost every other can on that shelf relies on. Which leaves one obvious question: how does it last so long?
Why we're showing you this
Most brands keep the process behind a curtain and call it proprietary. We would rather open the doors, because once you know how a drink is made you can tell a real one from flavored water in seconds.
Source · Blend · Carbonate · Can · Pasteurize
Fruit goes in one end and a sealed can comes out the other.
Every batch begins with real fruit juice and real ingredients: cranberry, lime, grapefruit, Peruvian ginger. We buy from first-tier vendors and pick them on quality and on how they farm, not on who quotes lowest.
The number that matters: 15% to 26% real juice, against the 3% to 7% typical of the category. It is the reason you can taste actual fruit.
We blend the juice with reverse osmosis water, a little real cane sugar and monk fruit for sweetness, and natural acidity for the dry finish that makes a cocktail read as a cocktail.
We leave out artificial flavors, preservatives, artificial dyes, artificial sweeteners, stevia, adaptogens, nootropics, CBD and added caffeine.
We carbonate the finished blend. Not to seltzer levels, which thins the fruit out, and not so lightly that it drinks flat. Bubbles carry aroma up to your nose and sharpen the finish, so we set carbonation by taste, not by a number on a gauge.
CO₂ needs something to hold on to, and in a normal cocktail it grabs the alcohol. There's none in here, so we push carbonation to the top of what the process will take. So, drink it cold!
We fill and seal Luba into 12 oz cans at our partner cannery in Wisconsin. We close the can before anything else happens to it, and that's what makes the last step possible.
Everything that keeps Luba stable happens after the can is shut.
Real juice sealed in a can with no preservative in it eventually starts to ferment. So, we stop that with heat rather than a chemical. We run the sealed cans through a long warm-water bath that brings the temperature up, holds it, then cools it back down. A can spends about 45 minutes in there. We call it tunnel pasteurization.
Then we check. Every run goes out for microbiology testing, and we wait five to seven days for the results before any of it ships.
The New Standard
The shortcuts that make most non-alcoholic drinks cheap and forgettable are the ones we refuse to take.
| The choice | How the category usually does it | How Luba does it |
|---|---|---|
| Flavor source | Sparkling water with flavoring on top. Juice usually lands at 3% to 7% | 15-26% real fruit juice as the base, with no artificial flavors on top of it |
| Alcohol | "Non-alcoholic" legally allows up to 0.5% ABV, so a trace often stays in the can | 0.0%. Built without alcohol, never brewed and stripped of it afterwards |
| Shelf stability | Chemical preservatives | No preservatives at all. Heat, applied after the can is sealed, does that job |
| The "extra" | Adaptogens, nootropics, THC and CBD,added caffeine | Nothing functional. No active ingredient to drink around |
| How it drinks | Sweet. Closer to a soda than to a cocktail | Dry, with a finish. The way a cocktail is meant to end |
| Sweetness | Heavy sugar, or artificial sweeteners | A little real cane sugar and monk fruit. No stevia |
| Color | Artificial dyes | The real color of the fruit |
| The process | Proprietary. Go looking for a process page and you will not find one | Blend real fruit juice for balance, carbonate for lift, fill and seal, then heat instead of adding a preservative. |
Swipe the table to compare
We are describing the category, not any one brand. Compare us to whichever can you like.
You do not have to take our word for it
Luba entered three flavors into the World Alcohol-Free Awards 2026. The medals matter less than what the judges wrote down.
Silver · World Alcohol-Free
"Dusky pink color, with flavor of hibiscus, lime and Japanese plum. Palate is delicate, dry and slightly spicy, with added flavor of cherry blossom. Complex, elegant and refreshing with a moreish grapefruit pith finish."
Judges' tasting note
Bronze · World Alcohol-Free
"Fresh, pure lemon flavor on nose and palate, all very natural tasting. Lemon zest and pith. Dry, grown-up and very moreish."
Judges' tasting note
Commended · World Alcohol-Free
"Dusky pink color, with attractive aromas of mint and pink grapefruit. Fun and approachable."
Judges' tasting note
Real ingredients, bought on purpose
Five decisions that cost more than the alternative.
The category, explained
The questions people ask when they are new to this, in the order we get them.
No. None of the four flavors contains a preservative of any kind, and nothing is added to the can after it is sealed. Shelf life comes from heat instead: the sealed can goes through a warm-water tunnel that brings the drink up to temperature, holds it, then cools it. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why the ingredient list is as short as it is.
A non-alcoholic cocktail is made by blending fruit juice with sweetness and acidity for balance, carbonating it, sealing it in a can, and then making it shelf-stable. The differences between brands sit in the details: how much real juice goes in, whether preservatives and dyes are added, whether anything functional is added, and how the can is stabilized. Luba uses 15% to 26% real juice against the category's typical 3% to 7%, adds no preservatives or dyes, and reaches shelf stability with heat rather than chemicals.
Between 15% and 26%, depending on the flavor. Most of the non-alcoholic category sits at 3% to 7%, with the rest of the taste coming from flavoring added to sparkling water. That gap is the single clearest difference between a drink built on fruit and a drink built on flavor, and it is why we publish the number instead of describing it.
Heat, applied after the can is sealed. Once the cocktail is filled and the can is closed, it travels through a warm-water tunnel that raises the temperature of the liquid, holds it there, then cools it down. A can spends about 45 minutes in there, and every production run is then put through microbiology testing before it is released. Nothing is added to the can at any stage of it.
Tunnel pasteurization is a gentle heat process applied to a drink after it is sealed in its container. Sealed cans move on a conveyor through a tunnel, pass under sprays of warm water that bring the liquid to a set temperature, hold there, then cool under a second set of sprays. It has been used in breweries and juice plants for decades. Done badly, heat flattens fresh fruit. Done properly it is brief and controlled, and the fruit holds. Judges at the World Alcohol-Free Awards 2026 called Luba "all very natural tasting", which is roughly the opposite of cooked.
No. Juice is one ingredient in it. A cocktail is built for balance and structure: tartness against sweetness, acidity for a dry finish, carbonation for lift. Alcohol normally carries a lot of that body and bite, so taking it out means rebuilding both with fruit, acid and sweetness alone. That is the technical problem of this whole category, and it is why a good zero-proof cocktail drinks dry rather than sweet.
Real juice, and zero alcohol. A hard seltzer is flavored, fizzy, and usually around 5% ABV, built on sparkling water. Luba is 0.0% and built on 15% to 26% real fruit juice, which is why it has body rather than just fizz. You are paying for what is in the can rather than for what it does to you.
Between 35 and 60 a can, depending on the flavor. The Kyiv Mule is the lightest at 35. Sugar runs 29% to 60% lower than the bar version of the same cocktail, measured against the drink each can is named after rather than against a category average.
No. There is no stevia in any Luba flavor, and that is a deliberate choice rather than an oversight. Sweetness comes from a little real cane sugar and a very small amount of monk fruit, which is not an artificial sweetener. It is the question we are asked most often at tastings.
Luba is blended, canned and pasteurized at a partner cannery in Wisconsin, near our home in Egg Harbor. Over time we plan to bring more of the process in-house.
Yes. All four Luba flavors are gluten free, and they are 0.0% alcohol, with no preservatives, no artificial dyes and nothing functional added.
Part of a bigger story
Four pages, and this is the one about how it is made.
You have read the whole process. The part we cannot write down is what it tastes like.
