Apéritif

Apéritif occupies a suite on the second floor of the University Hills complex on Shannon Road in south Durham, off University Drive, and describes itself to Discover Durham as an upscale neighbourhood bar bringing a downtown experience to its customers' backyard. It is a restaurant that leads with its bar and its desserts: a signature cocktail list, a seasonal one, a page of spritzes and sangrias, dessert cocktails, a long wine list by the glass and a beer list that runs from Allagash to Burial. It opens at noon from Tuesday to Saturday and at three on Sunday and Monday, and closes between nine and eleven.

The reason it is listed here is the section printed at the bottom of the cocktail page under the heading Mocktails. On the spring menu the bar publishes on its site — the most recent it has posted — there are two: the Vampire, fresh blackberries shaken with a honey syrup, hibiscus and lemon and topped with soda, and the Passionfruit Fizz, passion fruit tea with lemon, honey and egg white for the texture of a sour. Both are nine dollars. The winter card that preceded it carried four, adding a No-Jito on lime, mint, pomegranate and soda and a hot Apple of My Pie on cider with a cinnamon-anise syrup, lemon and vanilla, so the section changes with the season rather than sitting fixed.

The beer list is the other half of the offer. Untitled Art's non-alcoholic range is on the printed list at five dollars — a juicy IPA and a grapefruit shandy on the spring card, a mango dragonfruit sour on the winter one — which gives a non-drinker a second category rather than a single line of mocktails.

Be clear about what this is: a licensed restaurant and cocktail bar with a short printed mocktail section, not a destination for non-drinkers, and the kind of place that works for a mixed table where one or two people are ordering without alcohol. The menus were read from the venue's own site in September 2026; the spring card is the latest posted, so confirm the section when you arrive.