Getting to Know Savyll With Founder Avnish Babla
From experimenting with zero-proof blends in his kitchen to seeing his creations on the shelves of major supermarkets, Avnish Babla, founder of Savyll Beverage Co., has created a range of beautifully crafted cocktails without the alcohol, ready to crack open and enjoy with all the experience of a freshly constructed blend.
Pulling inspiration from his time in the UK, a craving for something more, and his love of hosting, Savyll has grown from those early experiments into a brand built around making great drinks easier to enjoy and share.
We were so happy to chat with Avnish about those early days, the memories he’ll never forget along the way, the inspo behind it all, and so much more. Let’s get into it, shall we?
We're so excited to be featuring Savyll in our boxes for the first time! For anyone discovering the brand through this month's box, can you tell us a little about Savyll and what it's all about?
Savyll is all about bringing the full cocktail experience to people who want to drink less or not at all — without feeling like they’re compromising.
We’re a London-born non-alcoholic cocktail brand, and we create ready-to-serve versions of classic cocktails that are made to taste and feel like the real thing. Rather than simply making flavored sparkling drinks, we focus on recreating the complexity, balance and occasion of a well-made cocktail.
Our range includes Mojito, Paloma, Bellini and Moscow Mule, all made with carefully selected ingredients and no artificial colors or sweeteners. You simply chill, pour over ice, garnish if you like, and enjoy.
Ultimately, Savyll was created around a simple idea: choosing not to drink alcohol shouldn’t mean having a less interesting drink in your hand.
Take us back to before Savyll. What was your relationship with non-alcoholic drinking, and what inspired you to create something different?
My wife and I grew up in Canada, but we moved to London, UK about 12 years ago and quickly discovered that drinking culture in the UK was on another level. It wasn’t unusual to see people in the pub at 11am on a Monday, and before long we had fully embraced that culture ourselves.
A few drinks after work could easily turn into sharing a couple of bottles of wine over dinner.
When we decided to start a family, we both wanted to change our relationship with alcohol. My wife stopped drinking during pregnancy, but I found it much harder. I was working in a high-pressure financial job, and so much of both work and social life revolved around drinking. What struck me was that when you chose not to drink, the alternatives rarely felt very exciting. You were often left with water, soda or something overly sweet while everyone else was enjoying a proper cocktail.
I had always loved making cocktails for friends and family when we entertained at home, so I started experimenting in our kitchen. At first, I was simply trying to make something special for my pregnant wife and for guests who weren’t drinking. I wanted them to have a drink that still felt grown-up, complex and worthy of the occasion.
Those experiments gradually became recipes, and the recipes became an idea for a business. At the same time, the non-alcoholic category in the UK was starting to take off, with brands like Seedlip helping to change perceptions around drinking less. It felt like consumers were ready for something different, but I saw an opportunity specifically for a great-tasting, ready-to-serve cocktail.
So I kept refining the recipes in my kitchen, and in January 2020, Savyll officially launched.
What started as a way to make sure my wife had something just as interesting in her glass ultimately became our mission: to make choosing not to drink alcohol feel like a positive choice, rather than a compromise.
Where did the name Savyll come from? We'd love to hear the story behind it!
The name Savyll comes from the idea that great drinks should be “savoured by all.” That really captures what we want the brand to stand for: inclusivity, choice and making sure everyone can enjoy the complexity and ritual of a proper cocktail, whether they drink alcohol or not.
There’s also a slightly cheeky London connection. We wanted the name to feel refined and distinctly British, and Savyll has a little echo of Savile Row — the home of beautifully tailored suits. In a way, that felt quite fitting: we like to think of our cocktails as being rather well tailored too.
What's been one of the most memorable moments in your Savyll journey so far?
There have been a lot of milestones, but one of the most memorable was definitely seeing Savyll on the shelves of a major supermarket for the first time.
We’re a small, independent team competing in a category that has attracted some incredibly well-funded brands, including brands backed by celebrities and major drinks companies. We obviously don’t have the same resources or marketing budgets, so there’s something incredibly rewarding about walking into a store and seeing Savyll sitting right alongside those brands. It’s a reminder that a great product, a clear point of view and a lot of persistence can still earn you a place on that shelf.
But the moment that really brought it home for me was actually much more personal. Not long after we first launched into major retail, I was shopping with my daughter, who was about three at the time. We walked down the drinks aisle, she spotted the cans on the shelf and suddenly shouted, “Those are Daddy’s drinks!” She was far more excited about it than anyone else in the store!
Building a brand can be pretty relentless. There are years of product development, buyer meetings, production challenges, fundraising, late nights and plenty of things that don't go to plan. Most of that happens completely behind the scenes.
So having my three-year-old recognise something that had started as an idea in our kitchen and seeing it sitting on the shelf of a major retailer was quite emotional. It was one of those rare moments where you stop thinking about the next problem you need to solve and appreciate how far you've actually come.
And yes, I may have deliberately taken the long way through that drinks aisle a few more times after that.
What's one misconception about non-alcoholic cocktails you hear all the time? How does Savyll challenge that?
The biggest misconception is that a non-alcoholic cocktail is essentially just juice with a garnish.
A great cocktail is much more than that. It has layers of flavour, acidity, sweetness, bitterness, aroma and a finish that makes you want to take another sip. Alcohol naturally brings some of that complexity and mouthfeel, so when you take it away, you have to work much harder to recreate the experience.
That’s what we’ve tried to do with Savyll. Our goal has never been simply to make a tasty soft drink — it’s to create something that genuinely feels like a cocktail. You should be able to pour it into a beautiful glass, add ice and a garnish, and never feel like you’ve been given the consolation prize.
We're featuring the Paloma and Mojito in this month's box. Before our community cracks one open, is there anything you'd love them to know? Or do you have a favorite way to enjoy either of them?
The first thing I’d say is: serve them properly cold. It makes a huge difference.
Both the Paloma and Mojito are designed to be enjoyed straight from the can, but my favourite way is to pour them over plenty of ice into a nice glass and add a simple garnish. For the Mojito, fresh mint and a wedge of lime really bring it to life. For the Paloma, I love a slice of grapefruit or lime — and if you want to get a little fancy, a lightly salted rim works brilliantly.
I’d also encourage people to take a moment with the first sip. We’ve tried to build the drinks in layers, rather than just making something sweet and fizzy, so you should get the citrus, the botanicals and the more subtle flavours coming through as you drink.
Most importantly, have fun with them. There’s no complicated ritual required — chill, pour, garnish if you fancy it, and enjoy.
How do you foster a sense of community through Savyll, whether that's online, at events, or behind the scenes?
For us, community really comes back to the reason Savyll exists in the first place: making sure everyone feels included in the occasion.
So much of social life revolves around having a drink together, whether that’s dinner with friends, a night out, a celebration or even just unwinding at the end of the week. We want Savyll to help make those moments feel just as special for people who aren’t drinking alcohol.
We try to build that community in lots of different ways — through tastings and events, conversations with customers online, and by working with partners who are helping to make mindful drinking feel more normal and more exciting.
We also genuinely listen to the people drinking Savyll. Some of our most useful feedback comes from customers telling us how they serve the drinks, where they discovered us, or what they’d love to see next.
And behind the scenes, we’re a relatively small team, so there’s a real sense that everyone is personally invested in the brand and the people around it. Ultimately, we want Savyll to feel less like a substitute for people who aren’t drinking and more like something everyone at the table can enjoy together.
Where do you see the zero-proof space heading over the next few years? And what role will Savyll play in that?
I think we’re going to stop talking about zero-proof as a niche category and simply start thinking of it as another way people choose to drink.
For a long time, the conversation was very binary: you either drank alcohol or you didn’t. What we’re seeing now is much more fluid. People might have a glass of wine on Friday, a non-alcoholic cocktail on Saturday, and nothing at all on Sunday. They’re not necessarily giving up alcohol — they just want more choice over when and how much they drink.
As that happens, I think expectations are going to rise dramatically. Consumers won’t accept an inferior drink simply because it happens to be alcohol-free. They’ll expect the same quality, complexity, beautiful packaging and sense of occasion they get from the alcoholic brands they love.
That’s where we see Savyll playing an important role. We want to help move the category beyond the idea of a “mocktail” and establish non-alcoholic cocktails as a genuinely desirable choice in their own right.
Our ambition is pretty simple: whether you’re at home, in a restaurant, at a sporting event or celebrating with friends, there should be a great cocktail available to you whether you want the alcohol or not.
Eventually, I’d love for ordering a zero-proof cocktail to be so normal that nobody feels the need to explain why they’re drinking one. It’s just what they preferred that night.
