Bar Botanico

Bar Botanico is a plant-filled cocktail bar on Butler Street in Lawrenceville, and it runs one of the strongest zero-proof lineups in Pittsburgh — a city where, as local reporting has noted, the alcohol-free options are thinner than its bar scene would suggest. The room is dense with greenery, which suits the drinks: the spirit-free list is built on real non-alcoholic distillates rather than assembled from juice, and it covers registers most bars skip entirely.

The signature is the Cut Above Mezcal Sour, made with Cut Above's non-alcoholic mezcal alongside coconut water, lapsang souchong, jalapeno, lemon and a vegan foamer. That build is worth unpacking, because it demonstrates exactly what separates a considered zero-proof drink from a poor one. Lapsang souchong is a pine-smoked tea, and it supplies the smoke that mezcal would otherwise bring; the jalapeno provides heat; the lemon gives acid; and the vegan foamer supplies the texture and head that alcohol and egg white normally create. Four different ingredients each doing a job that alcohol would have done — that is the actual craft of spirit-free bartending. Alongside it the bar pours a Seedlip Highball and a Seedlip Espresso Martini, the latter being one of the harder drinks to render convincingly without vodka, plus Red Ribbon seltzer and house-made lemonade and citrus soda for anyone wanting something simpler.

It is frequently cited among the city's best places to drink without alcohol, and its Lawrenceville location puts it on the same stretch as most of Pittsburgh's better bars, so a mixed group has no reason to go anywhere else. Open most nights from 5pm, with weekend afternoons from 2pm, closed Tuesdays. With Solace still to open in the same neighbourhood and Bantha Tea Bar a mile away in Garfield, Lawrenceville is quietly becoming the part of Pittsburgh where drinking less is easiest — and Bar Botanico is currently the most accomplished room in it.