Ardsley Station

Most of Savannah's zero-proof drinking happens downtown, inside hotels or on rooftops that fill with visitors after five. Ardsley Station is the neighbourhood counterweight: a corner restaurant on Victory Drive at the northern edge of Ardsley Park, a residential grid of oaks and 1920s houses about two miles south of the squares, serving locals for lunch as readily as dinner.

The alcohol-free drinks are printed under their own Zero-Proof heading and priced just under the cocktails, between $8.90 and $9.90. Cit-rus Got Real is the plainest and the best-balanced — rosemary, orgeat, lemon and soda, an almond-and-herb sour with no attempt to imitate a spirit. Downshift is the one that changes: it is built on Amethyst's blueberry-ginger botanical spirit with lemon, mint and whatever fruit is in season, so the drink you get in August is not the drink you get in February. Garden Party is a cucumber shrub with ginger, pomegranate and lemon, lengthened with soda. To those the bar adds Athletic Brewing's New Dawn at $4.90, listed in the Beer and Seltzers section rather than sidelined.

The list is a good illustration of how quickly this category moves. Savannah's tourism guide credits Ardsley Station with a House Cherry Limeade and a High Tea built on a pumpkin-spice shrub; neither is on the current menu, and Downshift itself has changed base spirit since the drink was first written up — it ran on a Dhos aperitivo in an earlier version. The section survived; the recipes did not.

The hours are the practical advantage. Eleven in the morning to ten at night, seven days a week, in a city where the better bar programmes do not unlock their doors until four.