Friends Jeff Roslund and Ryan Boudreau love cocktails.

But in addition they are sometimes following the Keto food regimen, which restricts sugar.

And the cold, hard truth is that cocktails are sometimes laden with sugar, much of it coming from liqueurs, which add essential flavor to the drinks.

Margarita? Triple Sec has almost 11 grams of sugar per ounce. White Russian? That coffee liqueur is probably the most sugar-dense cordials in the marketplace.

So Twin Cities residents Roslund and Boudreau, who were imbibing more at home through the pandemic, searched for an alternate.

“We looked around, and nobody was doing this,” Roslund said.

The pair, who had overtime on their hands, decided to do something about it.

“We spent loads of time making stuff in my kitchen,” Rosland said.

Once that they had a formula that they thought tasted great, the pair, each engineering grads from the University of Michigan, wasted no time finding a distillery to partner with, and Dapper Barons was born.

Roslund is the chief executive and Boudreau the chief research officer of the corporate, which launched in late 2021. Studio Distilling in St. Paul produces the liqueurs, which use all-natural, alcohol-based sugar substitutes and a small amount of sugar (1.3 grams per serving) — the smallest amount required to be legally considered a liqueur by the federal government.

“We experimented quite a bit to provide you with a formula that doesn’t have a weird aftertaste,” Rosland said.

Dapper Barons’ product lineup currently includes amaretto, coffee liqueur, creme de cacao, triple sec and peppermint schnapps. They’ve also recently launched a ready-to-drink espresso martini that has no sugar in any respect.

They’ve sold about 2,000 bottles of the product to this point and are carried by about 50 restaurants and 30 to 35 liquor stores. Some extent of pride for the blokes: Porterhouse Steak & Seafood has replaced traditional liqueurs with Dapper Barons’ versions in all of its house cocktails.

“These should not alternative cocktails; they’re just their house cocktails,” Roslund said.

Occupied with trying Dapper Barons? Roslund and Boudreau will likely be offering samples at Minnesota Monthly’s Food & Wine Experience, which runs March 3-5 on the Omni Viking Lakes Hotel in Eagan. For more information, go to dapperbarons.com.