“Intentional drinking,” the New Yorker calls it. The Atlantic labeled an entire generation “neo-temperate.” Tipplers are “zebra-striping” through their evening, alternating between cocktails and spirit-free options in the same outing. Mixologists build zero-proof programs with the care they once reserved for their spirited menus. Along the Gulf Coast, the shift happened quickly. At a number of area venues, bartenders are holding the spirits. New zero-proof programs are delivering drinks with distinct flavor: bitter, botanical, smoky, earthy. A guest who skips the bourbon deserves more than a glass of orange juice, and local bartenders are making sure what’s handed across the bar is worth the squeeze. —S.E. Miano

ZERO PROOF  Michael’s On East

When Michael’s on East reopened after renovations last October, co-proprietor Michael Klauber clocked something in the dining room: iced tea. “We’ve seen a real influx of younger diners, and we noticed that a lot of them weren’t drinking,” he says. “Why can’t they have the same kind of experience that people have with some of the wines and spirits?” The answer: a zero-proof menu. “We went through the same kind of process that we go through when adding any wine or beer,” Klauber says. “We did a lot of homework, and we tasted a lot of products.” The naming
 was intentional, too. “We don’t call them non-alcoholic or mocktails.
We really wanted to say what it is . . . zero proof is how we describe them.”
Before the menu existed, lead mixologist Lara Baykent fulfilled the same request on repeat. “People would say, ‘Oh, I don’t drink. Can you make me a mocktail, but put it in a fancy glass?’” Now that they’ve got The Honey Keeper, no guest needs to pretend. A riff on the restaurant’s signature Beekeeper cocktail, the zero-proof version swaps tequila with a non-alcoholic agave distillate and adds smoked nutmeg honey syrup. Nationally, the drinks media outlet VinePair has reported that the winning flavor in the NA space tends to be bitter and botanically complex, not sweet. The Honey Keeper follows that formula: smoke registers first, then a sweetness that lemon and orange bitters keep in check. Baykent pairs it with happy hour’s jumble-up crab stack with a chili basil vinaigrette. “Spicy and sweet, they go together,” she says.

Baykent credits a lesser-known ingredient for the texture: Arabic gum, “to give it a little more body and a little more weight, so when somebody drinks it, the mouthfeel is like an alcoholic drink.” For the filet mignon brochette with housemade ketchup, the bar sends out something bolder, the Midnight in Manhattan: on oak-aged American spirit, Italian-style aperitif and aromatic bitters, all non-alcoholic, with enough tannic grip to stand beside red meat. The Tease Tini, their zero-proof espresso martini, pairs a coffee liqueur alternative with vanilla and fresh-pulled espresso, riding the wave that’s made it the most-ordered cocktail at bars nationwide. “Why punish people that aren’t gonna have a spirit, a wine or a beer, when we can do some really fun things with these new products that are coming out?” Klauber says. “It really is exciting.”

INSPIRED BY THE BIRDS  Rufa at the Ritz-Carlton

Jillian McClure tends bar at Rufa at the Ritz-Carlton, an all-outdoor bar, with a credential she leads with: three years of sobriety. “I got sober in April 2023,” the lifestyle bartender says. “So I am extra passionate about creating mocktails and craft drinks as alternatives.” Rufa opened in October 2024 with two spirit-free cocktails on the menu. The bar takes its name from a true snowbird, the Rufa Red Knot, which winters in Sarasota before migrating to Argentina. Every cocktail carries a bird name and a virtue. The Dove (“Peace + Hope”) starts with coconut milk and caramelized pineapple. McClure simmers fresh pineapple juice with brown sugar and cinnamon to caramelize the fruit, giving a toasted depth that straight juice cannot touch. Fresh lime and Yuzu lime soda lighten the body, while a toasted coconut rim adds crunch.

McClure might pair that with the Birria Tacos, braised short rib with chihuahua cheese, or Beef Sliders with chorizo and lime cilantro aioli. “Many times in my early sobriety, when I would go out, most people would say, ‘Oh, we can do it without the alcohol.’ And mainly you’re getting a glass of orange juice. Nobody wants to eat a steak dinner and have a glass of orange juice with that.”

The Blue Jay (“Honesty + Kindness”) is pure drama. Housemade tart cherry syrup pools at the bottom beneath Yuzu lime soda. Butterfly pea tea, which the bar steeps in-house from dried flowers, stains the top layer a vivid indigo. There’s a faint lavender note on the finish. “The drink actually is red, white and blue,” McClure says. “It almost looks like those popsicles you eat in the summertime.” Cue the tapas-style Maine lobster bites with garlic-herb butter, avocado and plantain tostones. At a tasting event last November, the Blue Jay outsold every spirited option on the menu. “It’s not just a trend,” McClure says. “It’s a movement.”

The numbers confirm what she and other bartenders already suspected: off-premise sales of non-alcoholic beer, wine and spirits reached $925 million in 2025, up 22 percent year over year, and the U.S. no-alcohol market is projected to approach $5 billion by 2028.

SHOWING THE RANGE  Florence & the Spice Boys

The bestselling zero-proof cocktail at Florence & the Spice Boys, The Pink Cloud, arrives in a martini glass with a tricolored tuft of cotton candy perched on the rim, sweetening the final sips while dissolving slowly into a pomegranate, hibiscus and elderflower tonic. “Every time we sell them, people are like, ‘Oh, what’s that?’” says General Manager of the UTC location, Amber Carlson. Florence, which opened a year ago, originally offered every cocktail in a non-alcoholic version. The team learned fast that subtraction does not make a drink. “Several drinks feature Aplos Arise, a hemp- and adaptogen-based non-alcoholic spirit. “Aplos is not mimicking a certain kind of alcohol,” Carlson says. “It’s not pretending to be something else. It’s kind of its own thing.” She hasn’t had a drink in 10 years, but then, “all of my friends and everybody I know doesn’t drink very much,” she says. “It’s part of being a little bit healthier, and still wanting to have something fun to drink when you go out.” The distinction matters: rather than asking a non-alcoholic product to stand in for gin or vodka, Florence treats it as an ingredient with its own character. The Serenity Now shows the range: Fluere Smoked Agave provides a campfire on the nose, grapefruit supplies tartness and serrano pepper gives a gradual heat. Carlson compares the profile to a smoky mezcal margarita. Pair either drink with the hummus, sprouted labneh or the chicken shawarma pita. “People do that a lot, honestly, have a cocktail and a little snack.”

Florence’s zero-proof menu belongs to a growing category: the functional beverage, engineered to deliver a physiological effect. Where a standard mocktail replaces the missing spirit with extra juice, these drinks introduce adaptogens and botanicals that change how a drink feels, not only how it tastes.  

GOOD FOR THE GUT  Café Evergreen

The kefir grains of Cafe Evergreen live in its bank vault. The building in Nokomis, constructed in 1923 as the first bank and first post office in Sarasota County, still has the original vault, walls three feet thick. Owner Ted Weinberger discovered it was the ideal home for his cultures. “They’re very sensitive to electricity, to fluctuations in heat and hot and cold, and they like it quiet,” he says. “The bank vault seems to be really working out nice for them.”

Weinberger grows water kefir, a cousin of the milk-based kefir that those 1970s Cossack yogurt commercials promised would help you live to 100. It requires feeding sugar water to symbiotic colonies of bacteria and yeast. Long before “functional beverage” became a marketing category, Café Evergreen was fermenting its own, tending the same living culture for over a decade. The grains are temperamental: sensitive to metal, hostile to tap water, prone to unexplained die-offs. Weinberger keeps a backup batch in hibernation in the refrigerator, suspended in high-sugar water, dormant and ready. “Sometimes you just don’t know why. You just go in there, and you look at it and they’re not happy.”

The liquid tastes, well, it’s hard to describe. “I don’t know how it gets that flavor,” Weinberger admits, “but it reminds me of apple juice. It’s very non-offensive.” Poured into a wine glass, the color could pass for white wine. “You think you’re having a glass of Chardonnay because it’s the same nice yellow color.” The café also carries CBD-infused drinks, part of a broader pattern: 22 percent of consumers who purchase non-alcoholic beverages now explore THC and CBD options as part of their social drinking repertoire.

The Summer Cooler, Evergreen’s most popular drink, adds fresh watermelon muddled with mint and house-made lemonade: a probiotic punch dressed up as a poolside cocktail. The Midnight Cooler swaps in blueberries. Weinberger’s pairing recommendation: the raw avocado slider on dehydrated onion bread. “You’re knocking it out of the
ballpark. You’ll feel full, and you’ll walk away really happy.”

Michael’s on East, 1212 S. East Ave, Sarasota, 941-366-0007, bestfood.com;

Rufa at the Ritz-Carlton, 1111 Ritz-Carlton Dr, Sarasota, 941-309-2000, ritzcarlton.com;

Florence & the Spice Boys, 257 N Cattlemen Rd, Unit 90, Sarasota, 941-359-8338, florenceandthespiceboys.com;

Café Evergreen, 801 Tamiami Trail South, Nokomis, 941-412-4334, cafeevergreen.net.