---
bcp_version: "0.7"
file_type: voice
parent: /.well-known/brand.md
last_updated: 2026-07-12
---

# Voice

MURI sounds like a chef who also reads food science papers and used to go to warehouse raves: candid, curious, specific, and completely unbothered by convention. Not polished. Not corporate. Not sad.

## Personality

**Candid.** Say the thing plainly. The founder quit finance with "screw it" and named a product after "a bonkers nightclub in East London." That register is the baseline. Not blunt for shock value, but never softened into vagueness.

**Pleasure-led, not abstinence-led.** The frame is always deliciousness, never deprivation. The goal, in the founder's own words: "a situation where drinks will be categorized by deliciousness, not their alcohol content." Write from that world, not from the sober-curious one.

**Curious, not cautious.** "One of the best things about the non-alc space is that we can try whatever we feel like — there are no rules." The voice reflects that: ants for acidity, wild rose butter, fermented fig leaves are not unusual here. They are the point.

**Specific.** Names, ingredients, techniques, collaborators. Generality is a red flag. If copy could describe any drink brand, it is wrong.

## Register

Informal-to-conversational in most contexts. Comfortable with contractions, colloquial phrasing, and the occasional single-word sentence. Never stuffy. Never breathless or exclamatory. The tone sits closer to a sharp, confident cook explaining a dish than to a brand manager writing a press release.

The register can shift toward technical precision when describing fermentation, ingredient provenance, or culinary technique — but the underlying voice stays candid. Technical and informal are not opposites here.

## Vocabulary

Each entry carries a `tier` per BCP v0.7 §7.1.1.

```yaml
prefer:
  - word: "non-alc"
    tier: default
    rationale: "Category shorthand the founder uses; natural, not clinical."
  - word: "delicious"
    tier: default
    rationale: "Pleasure-led framing; the founder's preferred category lens."
  - word: "craft"
    tier: default
    rationale: "Used by brand to describe the standard alcohol-free alternatives fail to meet."
  - word: "foraged"
    tier: default
    rationale: "Specific to MURI's sourcing practice; grounded, not decorative."
  - word: "fermented"
    tier: default
    rationale: "Core technique; use it accurately and without apology."
  - word: "stand on their own"
    tier: core
    rationale: "Exact brand phrase for MURI's independence from alcoholic reference points."

avoid:
  - word: "wine alternative"
    tier: core
    rationale: "Founder's exact rejection: 'the term just sounds so sad and didn't do justice to the amount of craft and innovation we were putting into each bottle.'"
  - word: "substitute"
    tier: core
    rationale: "Exact brand rejection: 'We don't want to be known as a substitute, proxy, or mimic.'"
  - word: "proxy"
    tier: core
    rationale: "Exact brand rejection: same source as 'substitute' above."
  - word: "mimic"
    tier: core
    rationale: "Exact brand rejection: same source as 'substitute' above."
  - word: "alcohol-free wine"
    tier: core
    rationale: "Founder: 'Alcohol-free wine will never be as good as regular wine.' Framing MURI this way implies a comparison MURI refuses."
  - word: "alcohol-free gin"
    tier: core
    rationale: "Same rationale as 'alcohol-free wine': the imitation frame is explicitly rejected."
  - word: "sober"
    tier: default
    rationale: "Abstinence-led framing; MURI's voice is pleasure-led, not abstinence-led. No evidence of explicit owner rejection, but inconsistent with stated frame."
```

## Punctuation and formatting rules

```yaml
oxford_comma: yes
headline_periods: no
exclamation_points: sparingly
em_dashes: sparingly
sentence_case_headlines: yes
capitalization_notes: >
  Product names retain their published capitalisation (e.g. Passing Clouds).
  'MURI' is always fully capitalised. 'non-alc' is lowercase hyphenated.
```

## Channel modulation

Evidence supports one channel signal. All other contexts are a gap.

```yaml
contexts:
  editorial_interview:
    tone: "Candid, discursive, opinionated. Founder voice is the model: personal anecdote sits next to technical conviction."
    register: "Informal. First person comfortable."
    example: "My favorite is our OG, Passing Clouds, named after a bonkers nightclub I used to go to in East London."
```

[gap] No distinct channel modulation found for social, email, product pages, support, or advertising. Collapse all other contexts to the baseline register above until evidence is supplied.

## Copy examples

| On-brand | Off-brand |
|----------|-----------|
| "Our drinks stand on their own." | "A sophisticated wine alternative for mindful moments." |
| "named after a bonkers nightclub I used to go to in East London" | "Inspired by the vibrant energy of the city." |
| "One of the best things about the non-alc space is that we can try whatever we feel like — there are no rules." | "We're revolutionizing the non-alcoholic beverage category." |
| "Alcohol-free wine will never be as good as regular wine. A gin without alcohol will never have as much flavor as a regular gin." | "Our drinks deliver the same experience without the alcohol." |

> On-brand examples are exact quotes from the founder (sourced: dryatlas.com interview, retrieved 2026-07-12). Off-brand examples are constructed to illustrate the contrast; they are not real MURI copy.