10 of the best
NON-ALCOHOLIC
COCKTAIL PROGRAMS
IN THE U.S.
ABOVE
BOARD
WASHINGTON,
D.C.
BAR:
LOCATION:
Recommended by Laura Silverman, founder of Zero Proof Nation, Above Board is housed in The Square, a downtown D.C. food hall. Helmed by Owen Thomson, the non-alcoholic cocktail program is predicated on his idea of there being “no separation” between the bar’s drinks, regardless of alcohol content. “Every drink we make, we can make both ways,” Thomson says. Rather than use off-the-shelf non-alcoholic products, the team at Above Board uses culinary techniques to create their own bespoke non-alcoholic takes on traditional spirits. Examples include a non-alcoholic aquavit that’s used in the bar’s non-alcoholic Bunny Slope Dropout, which pairs the savory aromatics of aquavit with turmeric and carrot juice.
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BAR
CONTRA
BAR:
LOCATION:
NEW YORK
CITY
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The Dave Arnold Cinematic Universe continues to evolve with the recent opening of Bar Contra, a collaboration between him and chefs Fabián von Hauske Valtierra and Jeremiah Stone. Rounding out the cast is bar manager Theo Ouya. The menu features a spectrum of ABVs, from typical cocktail strength to low alcohol and no alcohol — meaning zero, as opposed to trace amounts (under 0.5 percent ABV) often found in beverages labeled “non-alcoholic.” “We have a hard stop rule that if it’s going to be in the non-alcoholic section, it has to be zero,” says Ouya. The team develops its non-alcoholic cocktails from the ground up, as opposed to riffing on an existing drink. Ouya uses Arnold’s extensive technical expertise to “isolate and control the variables” within a given drink’s flavor profile, harnessing a long list of esoteric ingredients in cocktails like the grapefruit-creamsicle-inspired Better Living to provide texture, bitterness, and aromatics.
CHYNA
CLUB
BAR:
LOCATION:
LAS
VEGAS
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When I asked bartender Giuseppe González for intel on great non-alcoholic cocktails, he pointed to Juyoung Kang, beverage director at Las Vegas’ Fontainebleau hotel. Chyna Club, one of the hotel’s 36 bars and restaurants, serves Cantonese-driven fine-dining cuisine and Kang wanted to serve a robust selection of non-alcoholic cocktails to satisfy an “uptick” in demand. “Just because people come to Vegas doesn’t mean that everyone drinks,” she tells me. Eschewing the tendency for many non-alcoholic options to be “juice-oriented,” Kang was driven to create a program of “high-end, elevated” Asian-inspired cocktails. Kang uses ingredients like the leftover water from rice cooking, as well as teas and non-alcoholic spirits to give her non-alcoholic cocktails length and texture. A shining example is the Pony Express, an elegant three-ingredient sour with long-steeped oolong tea, strawberry syrup, and lemon juice.
DOGON
BAR:
LOCATION:
WASHINGTON,
D.C.
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There are few figures as well-known in the low- and no-alcohol drinks space as Derek Brown. His cocktail list for chef Kwame Onwuachi’s latest restaurant features cocktails rooted in the same culinary foundations as the food, including West African and American traditions. Brown says he and Onwuachi were on the same page from day one when it came to developing a robust list of non-alcoholic options.
“Sometimes cocktail programs can feel disjointed,” Brown says of drinks menus that have non-alcoholic cocktails tacked on at the end like an afterthought. Dōgon’s cocktail menu is nearly 50 percent non-alcoholic cocktails, featuring drinks like the RNAG&T that leverages three non-alcoholic spirits to render a floral and fresh Gin & Tonic riff.
KATO
BAR:
LOCATION:
LOS
ANGELES
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“The alcohol-free program at Kato is multifaced,” says Austin Hennelly, bar director at Los Angeles’s lauded Taiwanese-American tasting menu restaurant. Beyond non-alcoholic cocktails, the beverage program features a plethora of non-alcoholic wines, beers, and other ready to drink options. But it’s in the non-alcoholic cocktails where Hennelly’s talents really shine. He develops cocktails from the ground up, starting with a flavor or an ingredient the team wants to feature and then building a cocktail around that. Case in point: the Mandarin Garibaldi. Hennelly built the drink to showcase fresh mandarin orange juice, with milky Calpico and gentian-infused non-alcoholic sweet vermouth playing supporting roles.
LIFE ON MARS
BAR:
LOCATION:
SEATTLE
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“If you’re not taking care of every single person in the bar, you’re not doing it correctly.” Wise words from Kraig Rovensky, beverage director for Seattle’s Life on Mars (and Global Brand Ambassador for non-alcoholic amaro brand, The Pathfinder). The bar’s menu is unique among this cohort for its publication of every drink’s ABV, something that Rovensky ported over from the craft beer world. This transparency allows the team to engage with customers about the amount of alcohol that they’re consuming. Some “non-alcoholic” beverages do contain trace amounts of alcohol, which may or may not be an issue for some people, so this listing puts the drinker in control. The bar’s High Violet mixes a non-alcoholic amaro with blueberries, coffee, a non-alcoholic tequila alternative, and a non-alcoholic substitute for Angostura bitters (which is 44.7 percent alcohol, by the way).
Rob
Roy
BAR:
LOCATION:
SEATTLE
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Owner Anu Apte has been serving non-alcoholic creations at this award-winning cocktail bar since 2009. The list has expanded over the years from a smaller “Temperance” section of the menu to what is today the bar’s “Designated Drivers” page of six original cocktails. Apte wanted to offer something for guests that reflected care for their health while still allowing them “to come out and enjoy hanging out with friends and have a drink that is just as delicious” as any of the bar’s alcohol-based cocktails.
The Belltown Goddxssxs was created by the bar’s manager Jojo Kitchen and is a nod to Seattle’s nickname as well as a gender-expansive permutation of the word “goddess.” It features non-alcoholic amaro, cantaloupe shrub, and a saffron-rose syrup.
WILD
CHILD
BAR:
LOCATION:
SHAWNEE,
KS
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Of all the programs featured in this roundup, Wild Child’s list of non-alcoholic cocktails ranks top in terms of sheer number. Owner Jay Sanders says he wants “to give as much consideration and space” to their non-alcoholic section as any other drink they serve. As such, the bar’s non-alcoholic section features 14 drinks, only six fewer than its alcohol-based list.
Wild Child uses techniques like atmospheric distillation — a process that separates liquids with different boiling points, like water and ethanol — to render traditional spirits non-alcoholic. However some of the drinks, like the Sound & Fury, are made with more accessible techniques, such as infusing apple cider vinegar with habanero to give this carrot-based shrub a complex spicy vibrancy.
TRICK
DOG
BAR:
LOCATION:
SAN
FRANCISCO
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“Discretion” and “inclusion” are two key motifs of the bar program at San Francisco institution Trick Dog. Owner Josh Harris strives for the bar’s non-alcoholic cocktails to have “complete parity in their integration into the menu.” Trick Dog’s menu normalizes the idea of non-alcoholic drinking while allowing guests to order whatever they desire without drawing obvious attention to the fact that they’re avoiding alcohol. All drinks, regardless of alcohol content, follow the same naming convention and do not appear in a sequestered region of the menu. “These are all just drinks and some of them have alcohol and some of them don’t,” Harris says. This casual approach is reflected in drinks like The Escape Artist, which features non-alcoholic amaro mixed with cinnamon, fig-walnut bitters, and non-alcoholic Weissbier.
SUNKEN
HARBOR CLUB
BAR:
LOCATION:
NEW YORK
CITY
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The tropical-themed bar Sunken Harbor Club floats above Brooklyn steakhouse Gage & Tollner. Helmed by Chief Cocktail Officer Garret Richard, the cocktail menu’s “Dry Land” section features an array of drinks that draw inspiration from old-school techniques used by soda jerks, who served soft drinks made with flavored syrups that have found a second life thanks to beverage historians like Darcy O’Neil. “What were some of the most interesting non-alcs in a historical setting?” is the question that guides Richard when putting together non-alcoholic drinks. This process has led him to drinks such as Scrimshaw, which features an elderflower syrup made by Austrian biodynamic wine producer Nikolaihof, as well as clarified grapefruit and non-alcoholic amaro.
Up until about five years ago, the average person was likely to associate the term “non-alcoholic cocktail” with drinks like a Shirley Temple or a virgin Piña Colada — drinks built primarily around sugar and artificial flavorings that could not hold a candle to the kind of care and craftsmanship devoted to “regular” cocktails.
Well, things have changed. Thanks to a huge spike in consumer demand for well crafted non-alcoholic drinks that offer the same gustatory satisfaction as their alcohol-based counterparts, this often overlooked — and even derided — segment of the beverage industry has more recently received a ton of attention and respect. While it was once a nice surprise to see a selection of carefully crafted non-alcoholic cocktails on a beverage list, now it’s quite commonplace, if not a baseline expectation.
Throughout the course of my 15-plus year career as a bartender and journalist, I’ve been keenly interested in non-alcoholic cocktails. My interest is rooted in two main features of the non-alcoholic drinks space. One, accessibility is a core tenet of hospitality. While it’s always important to maintain a point of view, it’s equally important to try to include as many people as possible. Someone might not want to consume alcohol for countless different reasons, and a cocktail program should reflect an intentional effort to deliver the same experience to those people as any other guest. Second, non-alcoholic cocktails are challenging. Setting aside that alcohol provides myriad functional benefits like texture and flavor density, there just aren’t the same plethora of non-alcoholic ingredients as there are spirits.
The rising criticality of non-alcoholic cocktails begs the question: What makes a non-alcoholic cocktail program good? And by “good” I mean thoughtful, interesting, innovative, and, above all else, delicious. Much has been written about the “best” cocktail programs in the world, with awards ceremonies and other forms of recognition galore. But by comparison, precious little has been devoted to identifying — and celebrating — achievements in non-alcoholic drink-making. This is our humble attempt to move the needle. “The main thing is having drinks that keep you coming back,” says Lorelei Bandrovschi, founder and CEO of Listen Bar, of what she sees as a key feature of any great non-alcoholic cocktail program. She believes menus should feel like a “journey” that offers a diversity of flavor profiles without resorting to “fancy lemonades and ginger ales.”
Stefan Was, owner of Porco Lounge & Tiki Room in Cleveland, Ohio says that there’s “no right or wrong” way to approach a non-alcoholic cocktail list, but the guest’s experience is paramount. Was doesn’t want the atmosphere to be compromised by a sterile feeling of abstemiousness surrounding non-alcoholic drinks. In addition to the drinks themselves, the way they are presented on the menu is also paramount to delivering a stellar non-alcoholic cocktail program. “A drink made as an afterthought isn't given a second thought,” says Josh Gandee, co-founder of drinks consultancy firm Historic Revelry and host of the “no proof” podcast. He cautions against relegating non-alcoholic cocktails to their own “children’s section” and urges drink creators to think beyond simply reworking existing cocktails to suit a non-alcoholic requirement.
Thanks to the recommendations of these experts, and based on additional reporting, we compiled a list of 10 of the most interesting and thoughtful non-alcoholic cocktail programs the country has to offer. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it represents a thorough snapshot of this burgeoning segment of the cocktail world.
CredITs
Words John deBary
Editorial
Joanna Sciarrino
Tim McKirdy
Design & Art Direction
Danielle Grinberg
Photography
Jeff Brown
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10 of the best
NON-ALCOHOLIC
COCKTAIL PROGRAMS
IN THE U.S.
Photo Courtesy of Listen Bar
By John deBary