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The joy of booze but without the hangover or health risks. But is Britain ready for synthetic alcohol?

The joy of booze but without the hangover or health risks. But is Britain ready for synthetic alcohol?

Drinks that provide the joys of booze without the dangers are the holy grail for some party-goers… and one British scientist believes he has cracked the formula

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Tom Hoggins

16 OCTOBER 2019

A dry mouth and a pounding headache, early-morning breath that could cut through bank vaults mixed with the distinct taste of regret.

Most of us have been there, the morning after an overindulgence of booze. And what a night it was. But wouldn’t it be nice to get through the next day without the ferocious hangover forcing you to the loo every five minutes?

That possibility is getting closer, should a quest to create a ‘healthier’ alternative to alcohol by former Government drugs adviser Professor David Nutt be successful.

Nutt’s goal with ‘Alcarelle’ – a synthetic alcohol substitute – is to offer all of the joys of booze and none of the drawbacks. And if it works, it could have a major impact on the trillion dollar global drinks market.

“Most of my professional life I’ve been researching how to help people with alcohol problems,” says Nutt, who had previously discovered an ‘antidote’ to drunkenness.

“But you will always be left with the problem of the toxicity of alcohol. We were brainstorming about the future and this idea came to me that if we can’t find treatments to prevent the damage from alcohol, which seems very difficult to do, maybe we could just replace it.”

In 2009, Nutt was dismissed from his Government post after outspoken comments on society’s attitude towards drugs and alcohol, saying that horse riding was more dangerous than ecstasy and that alcohol was more harmful than LSD and cannabis. He is now director of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and pursuing his goal of hangover-free alcohol with Alcarelle’s managing director, tech entrepreneur David Orren.

While Nutt has wanted to find an alcohol replacement since 1983, he says that the Alcarelle project began in earnest in 2004. The goal was to target the ‘mechanisms’ of alcohol that could be replicated by combining other chemicals. And as technology has improved over the last 15 years, Alcarelle is now confident it has found substances that will recreate the ‘good’ effects of alcohol – relaxation and sociability – without the harmful downsides.

“Alcohol is a very complicated drug and it works on many different transmitter systems in the brain,” says Nutt. “The ones that produce good effects are actually different from the ones that produce bad effects. That’s where the opportunity comes in: you can target different receptors and neurotransmitters in the brain.”

While the make-up of Alcarelle’s compound is a trade secret, the theory goes that it can stimulate the parts of the brain to induce tipsiness – such as the Gaba neurotransmitter which alleviates anxiety and encourages relaxation – while actively avoiding the receptors that produce the ‘bad’ effects of drinking.

The synthetic alcohol, which Nutt says has been created with combinations of both chemicals and natural products, can also have a “ceiling effect” built in so you won’t be able to get blind-drunk. And unlike alcohol it won’t break down into metabolite acetaldehyde, a toxin that can contribute to cancer and liver damage.

Different variants of Alcarelle might be able to offer different levels of social lubrication, too, from relaxing evening tipples to party-starting cocktails. “A couple of drinks is where most people get to the peak of sociability,” says Nutt. “If you get the science right, you can plateau the effect.”

With Nutt, Orren and the Alcarelle team believing that the science is largely in place, the challenge now is to make sure that the product can clear the regulatory hurdles in order to bring it to market. They are hopeful that they will be able to sell Alcarelle as an ingredient within the next five years.

First it will need to go through the Food Regulatory Pathway, with Nutt believing that Alcarelle will need to be at least 100 times safer than alcohol to be passed as fit for human consumption. An Alcarelle compound made with botanical products would have an easier job passing than with a version made with chemicals. Nutt says that the company is focusing on one of each and will continue to do so as it searches for the perfect mix.

Synthetic alcohol is being pitched as a healthier and less damaging alternative to the devil’s drink and Alcarelle are unsurprisingly extolling the virtues of their creation. However, experts agree that any compound will need to be treated carefully and undergo rigorous safety checks.

“Gaba is one of the most abundant neurotransmitters in your brain, so we have to be extra careful about messing with this system,” Scott Edwards of Louisiana State University’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Center told LiveScience. “An increase in Gaba activity can cause significant impairment of judgment and motor function, with all the associated sociological and legal consequences.”

Edwards added that we would need to know exactly what was in Alcarelle to judge its safety. “One of the most dangerous aspects of any ingested substance – from fashionable street drugs to e-cigarettes – is not knowing exactly what chemicals are contained in the final formulation,” he said. There is also the risk that a dalliance with synthetic alcohol could actually lead to increased drinking for vulnerable people.

The CEO of the UK’s Drinkaware charity, Elaine Hindal, said: “We would view with caution any product that doesn’t provide its ingredients and claims to mimic so-called ‘good’ effects of alcohol. We cannot therefore advise consumers with confidence what impact drinking these sorts of products might have on their health; both in the short and long-term.

“In particular, if one of the side effects is limiting a person’s inhibitions or impairing a person’s judgement, we’d have serious concerns over the impact this could have on someone’s ability to carry out everyday activities like driving.”

Alcarelle would certainly need to be subject to the same regulations as regular alcohol, with a suitable age limit and a ban on driving while under its influence. Nutt understandably points out that were alcohol to be discovered today as a drink, it would almost certainly not be passed as fit for human consumption. But as an unknown quantity, Alcarelle is likely to face significant scrutiny.

However, should the compound perform as advertised, Nutt and his team could be on a “virtual goldmine”, according to Jonny Forsyth, associate director at food and drink analysts Mintel, partly due to a notable generational shift.

“Previously young people have loved to drink alcohol and they would just get on with it the next day,” he says.

“This generation likes to drink alcohol but they just do not tolerate hangovers; they’ve got too much to do and are too health conscious. A lot of them stop drinking, but they love the positive effects of alcohol which are essentially escapism and relaxation and fun. I think something that allows that escapism has a really important role to play.”

Nutt says that the team plans to release its own drink first, but that its long term business model is to sell the ingredient to big drink companies such as Diageo and Coors, who would then make their own synthetic alcohol drinks with their own branding. Forsyth believes that these companies would be very open to exploring such a possibility.

“I think they recognise that alcohol consumption is in long term decline and that’s going to continue,” he says. “Essentially they offer people recreational fun. So I think that this would be an interesting area for them to diversify into. And if they don’t get involved, it could take away from their core business model.”

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, while the market remains lucrative as consumers focus on higher-quality drinks, overall alcohol consumption was down 0.8pc last year. Beer consumption was down 1.5pc and while wine and spirit drinking was up, their growth has shrunk.

In 2016, Nutt boldly declared that alcohol would be all but gone by 2050. And while there seems little doubt that sales will continue to decline, particularly if challenged by a healthier alternative, there will always be a place for the heritage of fine wines and whiskies: something that is unlikely to be recreated in a lab.

“I don’t think it will ever kill off alcohol. It brings too much pleasure to people, you’re never going to fully replicate the taste,” says Forsyth. “And it’s more than the taste; it’s the craftsmanship, the natural terroirs of all the different stories. There’s always going to be a demand for that and I think as people get older they appreciate the taste more.”

While synthetic alcohol may never fully replace the real stuff, if Alcarelle does what it says on the bottle then it has the potential to be a major disruptor in the drinks industry. Nutt says that, while selling Alcarelle as an ingredient may take a few more years, the company is looking to bring a drink of their own to market as soon as next year as it would be simpler to pass regulations.

First the company is seeking investment to help with manufacturing and distribution and is even contemplating crowd-funding to make it happen. If all goes to plan, the hangover-free revolution may come sooner than you think.