Last updated: Saturday, 5th September 2026
As you get further into your vegan lifestyle, you start to notice that even alcoholic drinks sometimes have the odd animal product hidden in them. Most alcohol is vegan, but beer, wine, and cider are often clarified using animal-derived finings, and because of how drinks are labelled, you’d rarely know from the bottle.
If you’d still like to enjoy a drink, it’s handy to know which ones are animal-free. Here’s our guide to vegan-friendly alcohol, what to watch out for, and how to check anything that isn’t on the list.
Can vegans drink alcohol?
Yes, vegans can drink alcohol, but not every alcoholic drink is vegan. The issue isn’t the alcohol itself; it’s the way some drinks are clarified. Beer, wine, and cider are frequently passed through animal-derived “finings” to strip out haze and leftover yeast, and traces of those can remain in the finished drink.
Spirits are mostly in the clear. The drinks to check are beer, wine, and cider, along with a handful of cream or honey-based liqueurs.
What are animal finings?
Finings are clarifying agents used in alcohol to improve the overall appearance of the finished product. They bind to the tiny particles that make a young drink cloudy, such as yeast and proteins, then sink or filter out, leaving it bright and clear. Several of the traditional ones come from animals, which is where alcohol starts to become not vegan.
Isinglass
Isinglass is a form of collagen made from dried fish swim bladders. It’s the classic cask-beer and wine clarifier, and the most common reason a pint isn’t vegan.
Gelatine
Gelatin is made by boiling down animal skin, bone, and connective tissue, usually from cattle or pigs. Used to clarify some wines, ciders, and beers.
Casein
Casein is a protein found in milk. Occasionally used to make fine wine, particularly to lighten colour in whites.
Chitin
Chitin is derived from the shells of crustaceans like crab and prawn. Used by some cider makers as a clarifier.
Albumen
Albumen is a fancy word for egg white. A traditional fining for red wine in particular, used to soften and clarify it.
Why is some alcohol not vegan?
Here’s the part that catches people out: none of these have to appear on the label, legally.
Finings are classed as processing aids rather than ingredients, and alcoholic drinks are largely exempt from the full ingredient-labelling rules that cover food. Isinglass even has a specific labelling exemption under EU rules.
So a wine fined with albumen or a beer cleared with isinglass can look identical to a vegan one on the shelf, with nothing on the bottle to tell them apart. That’s why a dedicated checker like Barnivore is far more use than squinting at the back label.
Is beer vegan?
The following listings were confirmed September 2026, though it’s always worth confirming on Barnivore.
Plenty of beer is naturally vegan, but some is still fined with isinglass.
Here are some popular beers listed as vegan-friendly:
- Amstel
- Beck’s
- Carlsberg
- Cobra
- Coors and Coors Light
- Corona
- Desperados
- Guinness
- Heineken
- Sagres
- San Miguel
- Stella Artois (the beer, not the cidre)
- Tiger
- Tsingtao
Worth a special mention: Guinness has been vegan since 2018, when it removed the isinglass filtration it had used for generations. If you’ve long avoided it, you can pour one again.
Beers commonly flagged as non-vegan include:
- Carling
- Foster’s
- Kronenbourg 1664
Because finings aren’t listed, the label won’t confirm it either way, so check the brand on Barnivore if it isn’t above.
Is cider vegan?
A lot of cider is accidentally vegan, which you might not expect from something fruit-based, but the larger commercial brands sometimes use finings like chitin or gelatine in the clarifying process.
UK ciders generally listed as vegan include:
- Aspall
- Bulmers
- Brothers
- Kopparberg
- Old Mout
- Old Rosie
- Somersby (apple)
- Thatchers
Non-vegan ciders to look out for include:
- Blackthorn
- Magners
- Stella Artois Cidre
- Strongbow Original
- Woodpecker
- Somersby flavoured variants (blackberry, rhubarb, and the sparkling rosé range)
One memorable culprit here is chitin, the clarifier drawn from crab and prawn shells, is commonly used in ciders.
Is wine vegan?
Wine is one of the biggest surprises, since egg white, casein, and gelatine are all traditional wine finings. That said, more vegan wine options are available than you may think.
Common brands generally listed as vegan include:
- Blossom Hill (sparkling zinfandel)
- Bogle
- Bonny Doon
- Catalina Sounds
- Chianti
- Dibon Cava
- Kendall Jackson (white wines only)
- Giesen
- Parducci
- San Pedro
- Seaglass (Chardonnay)
- Stella Rosa (most of the range, per PETA)
Wines more often flagged as non-vegan include:
- Alamos
- Brazin
- Dark Horse
- Echo Falls
- Franzia
- Mateus
- Seaglass (cabernet, merlot, and heritage bottlings)
Columbia varies by range, so check the specific wine rather than the brand.
Is Prosecco or Champagne vegan?
It’s become increasingly more common to find vegan-friendly prosecco and champagne, but not all the time. Sparkling wines are made the same way as the still kind, so they may use the same animal finings.
Keep an eye out for the Vegan Trademark, which is often included amongst various brands, but not always.
Are liquors (Bourbon, Cognac, Gin, Rum, Vodka & Whiskey) vegan?
Good news for plant-forward spirit drinkers: most hard liquor is vegan. Spirits are usually distilled from grains, molasses, or other plants with just water and yeast, and distillation leaves little room for animal finings.
The exceptions are flavoured, cream, or honey versions, covered in the next section.
Is vodka vegan?
Vodka is almost always vegan. Vodka is made from fermented grains or other plant sugars, so plain vodka is vegan.
The thing to watch out for is flavoured vodkas, where the odd additive can sneak in.
Is rum vegan?
Rum is vegan by default, distilled from sugarcane or molasses, both plant-based. Cream-based versions, like some coconut or cream liqueurs, are the exception.
Is whiskey vegan?
Plain whiskey is vegan, being distilled from grain, water, and yeast. The catch is honey whiskeys (such as Jack Daniel’s Honey) and cream liqueurs, which aren’t.
Is gin vegan?
Yes, gin is a neutral grain spirit flavoured with botanicals like juniper, thus is vegan by default. Beefeater, ironically named, is actually among the vegan-friendly ones.
Is tequila vegan?
Plain tequila is vegan, made from the agave plant. The famous “worm” isn’t a tequila thing at all: it belongs to some mezcals.
Best to avoid any mezcal labelled con gusano, and steer clear of cream or flavoured tequilas that add dairy.
Is brandy vegan?
Brandy is also generally vegan by default. Brandy is distilled from wine or fruit, and most is vegan, though as with wine it’s worth a quick check.
Which spirits and liqueurs aren’t vegan?
The spirits to be careful with are the flavoured and cream ones. The usual giveaways are milk, cream, and honey.
Common examples of non-vegan liqueurs include:
- Cream liqueurs like Baileys, which is made with dairy cream
- Honey-flavoured spirits like Jack Daniel’s Honey
- Some flavoured or coloured liqueurs that use dairy or other animal-derived additives
If a spirit is plain and unflavoured, it’s usually fine. It’s the ones dressed up with cream or honey that need a second look.
Are cocktails vegan?
Many classic cocktails are vegan, but a few lean on cream, egg, or honey.
These cocktails are usually vegan:
- Mojito
- Margarita
- Gin martini
- French 75
- Piña colada, when made with coconut and not dairy
These cocktails are typically not vegan:
- Anything Baileys-based
- White Russian (cream)
- Eggnog (egg and cream)
- Piña colada made with dairy cream
- Whiskey sour or other “sour” served with an egg-white foam
Two things to watch when ordering out: egg-white foams on sours, and syrups made with honey or dairy. A quick word with the bartender usually sorts it.
Is alcohol vegetarian?
Most alcohol is naturally suitable for vegetarians, and slightly more of it than it is vegan. The finings that matter specifically for vegetarians are the egg and dairy-based ones, casein and albumen, which some vegetarians may still choose to avoid.
Isinglass and gelatine, drawn from fish and animal tissue, make a drink neither vegetarian nor vegan. So a drink fined with isinglass is off the menu for both, while one fined only with egg white would be vegetarian but not vegan.
How to check if a drink is vegan
Since the label rarely helps, the reliable move is to check before you buy. Two things make it easy:
- Barnivore is a free database of over 40,000 drinks with their vegan status. Search the brand and it’ll tell you where beer, wine, cider, or spirit stands.
- The Vegan Trademark on a bottle means it’s certified, so you can grab it without a second thought.
This post wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Barnivore, if you found some used from this article, check them out. Hopefully the next time you’re planning a round or a shop, you’ll know exactly what to get.
