Alcohol-Free Things to Do in Des Moines

Bellhop is Des Moines' tiki bar in the East Village — classy tiki rather than cheesy tiki, by its own description — with elevated takes on the classics and a robust craft beer list. Its alcohol-free builds are the Beachbreeze, of pineapple, passionfruit, coconut and lime with cherry, and Sandy Beaches, which uses blue coconut water with lime, Don's Mix and cinnamon. Don's Mix is the grapefruit-and-cinnamon syrup at the heart of the original Mai Tai-era tiki canon, and a bar using it in a drink with no rum in it is applying its real technique rather than a shortcut.

Hello, Marjorie occupies the former Register & Tribune building on Locust Street in downtown Des Moines, styled as a mid-century living room, and it runs the most serious alcohol-free programme in the city — a rotating spirit-free list built on real non-alcoholic liquor rather than juice. The Amaretto Stone Sour uses N/A amaretto and N/A rum with orange, lemon, cinnamon and orgeat; the G&T is Seedlip Spice 94 against a house tonic with spiced pear, clarified lime and soda water. Clarifying a lime is a technique most bars will not do for a drink with alcohol in it, let alone one without.

In Confidence is the speakeasy inside the Hotel Fort Des Moines, and it stocks the Lyre's range properly — a Zero Proof Mint Julep built on Lyre's bourbon alternative with simple syrup and mint, and a gin and tonic on Lyre's London dry with Fever Tree tonic. Both are straight substitutions into classics, which is exactly what a lot of non-drinkers actually want: not an invented fruit drink, but the thing they used to order, made properly. A julep in particular is almost all spirit, so making a convincing one without alcohol requires the bar to have bought a real product rather than improvised.

Revival House is a neon-lit tiki bar in downtown Des Moines and it carries three alcohol-free builds, the deepest single list in the city. The Cyclone runs orange juice, passion purée, lime, demerara and grenadine; the Blue Hawaiian is built on pea flower tea with pineapple, coconut and lime; and the Double Tea Old Fashioned uses double-steeped Earl Grey with demerara, orange and Angostura. That last one is the interesting build — double-steeping tea concentrates its tannin, which is what stands in for the grip of whiskey in an old fashioned. Local coverage notes the booze-free versions come with a smaller bill too.

The Bartender's Handshake is a vintage-styled cocktail bar on Ingersoll Avenue, open 2pm to 1am seven days a week and to 2am at weekends — the widest hours of any venue in this city guide. Its two documented alcohol-free builds are unusually savoury: the Vacation Email uses orange spice tea with grapefruit, lime, cinnamon, tonic and coconut, and the Karate Kid runs carrot and ginger syrup against lime, ginger beer, ancho chili and mint. Two sources of heat and a vegetable base is about as far from a sweet mocktail as a bar can get, and it is what makes both drinkable across a long evening.

Secret Admirer is a downtown Des Moines cocktail bar on SW 5th Street that keeps rotating seasonal spirit-free and low-ABV options rather than a fixed pair of mocktails — a Santa Spritz of raspberry, cinnamon, apple cider and Topo Chico appeared on the winter list. Carrying both spirit-free and low-ABV matters, because they serve different people: someone who has stopped entirely and someone who is cutting down need different things, and most bars quietly assume they are the same customer. Open 4pm most days, from 10am on Saturday, and closing at 1am on Friday.