Not all alcohol is vegan. Or vegetarian for that matter. Sad but true. If this comes as a surprise, take a deep breath, gulp down that last sip of potentially non-vegan wine, wave goodbye, and read on.

You might be asking, “what could possibly be in my wine that’s not vegan?” It’s not what’s in the alcohol- but how the alcohol is filtered, or refined. One of the animal parts used in filtering is isinglass (which comes from the swimbladders of fish), another is bone char (animal bone heated at high temperatures and essentially turned into charcoal). Some other animal products found in alcohol are chitlin (crab shells), gelatin, collagen, egg albumen (egg white), ox blood, and Glyceryl Monostearate. It may be somewhat comforting to know only trace amounts of these items end up in the alcohol you drink, but the fact of the matter is, animal products were used in the process. And there are ways to filter alcohol without animal products, such as with Bentonite clay and cellulose filter sheets.

Luckily, there are people out there who have done a great deal of research to find out which alcohol is safe for vegans and which is not.

For BEER go here.
For WINE go here.
For LIQUOR go here.

With beer, the Vegan Society says “As a general rule traditional, cask-conditioned beers (‘real ales’) are fined using isinglass. Keg, canned, beersphere and some bottled beers are usually filtered without the use of animal substances. Lagers are generally chill-filtered but a few (eg Stella Artois) do involve the use of isinglass.” I’ve noticed a lot of beers and liquors are vegan (a lot of beers don’t go through the refining process) and a lot of wines are not vegan. I love my wine, so this is disappointing. But there are companies that go out of their way to make vegan wines such as Frey Vineyards, The Pure Wine Company, Wright Wines, The Organic Wine Company and AOC. Note: not all organic wines are vegan.