New Growth

Non-alcoholic drinks are springing up at bars nationwide. Here’s how to bring the trend home.

- Julia Bainbridge

HOW DO YOU STOCK your home bar if you’re having a Dry January? Or you’re sober? Or you’re pregnant? Or you just don’t want to drink booze right now for whatever reason that you don’t have to justify to anyone?

The answer is that it’s not actually about your bar. Instead, stock your kitchen. “Treat a non-alcoholic drink like a dish,” says Sean Umstead of the upcoming Kingfisher in Durham, North Carolina. “Consider basic components—sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami.” Jake Soffes of Hudson Hill in Denver concurs: The rules of balance for cocktails apply for non-alcoholic drinks, too—look for an acidic backbone, some sweetness to soften it, and bitterness, which Soffes says provides “the difference between a good drink and a great one.”

For tanginess, bartender Gaby Mlynarczyk, author of Clean & Dirty Drinking, reaches for vinegar: Japanese pickled plum vinegar, red or white verjus, and balsamic are salty, tart, and rich, respectively. “Even in tiny amounts, vinegar adds complexity,” she says. And a pinch of salt, she says, ties everything together.