Tilden Nonalcoholic Cocktails Bring Complex Tastes to Sober Drinking

Vanessa Royle and Mariah Wood Enhancing Booze-Free Sipping Options from Santa Barbara to Boston

SOBER & SERIOUS: Tilden is bringing elegance and nuance to the nonalcoholic cocktail world, using ingredients like lapsang souchong tea, lychee, and Szechuan peppercorn to give depth and texture to each sip. | Credit: Alyssa Fioravanti; @alyssafior

The pandemic divided people into two camps, explains Vanessa Royle, the cofounder of a just-launched line of nonalcoholic, ready-to-pour cocktails called Tilden.

“More people than ever increased their drinking, and more people than ever quit as well,” said Royle, who found herself squarely in the latter group. “I was struggling mentally, and there didn’t seem to be a reason for drinking, so I decided to quit.”

TEAM TILDEN: Santa Barbara’s Vanessa Royle (right) and Boston’s Mariah Wood cofounded Tilden while students at Harvard Business School in 2021. | Credit: Alyssa Fioravanti; @alyssafior

The timing was right to reinvent herself. The San Jose–raised UC Berkeley grad was preparing to move from Santa Barbara, her husband’s hometown, to Boston, where she was starting Harvard Business School in August 2020. Once there, and attending the school’s boozy social engagements, she began telling people she didn’t drink, and many responded that they’d also stopped or were cutting down. But no one knew what to drink at parties.