Bardo

The Bardo is an alcohol-free botanical elixir bar inside an immersive art and design gallery at 691 West Whitehall Street in the West End. It comes from Luther Ocasio, a herbalist who became a bartender rather than the other way round. Ocasio told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he began learning about and experimenting with herbs in high school, but only called on the hobby in 2022, when he launched the roving Altered Bar pop-up that grew into this room. His reasoning was explicit: he did not want to encourage heavy alcohol use, and was looking to create experiences where people connect on deeper levels.

The drinks are built from fruits, herbs, florals, fungi and adaptogens rather than from liquor or from packaged non-alcoholic spirits, which puts the Bardo in a different category from most zero-proof bars. The Love Potion No. 9 combines damiana, rose and pomegranate; the Purple Haze is butterfly pea flower, lemonade, passion flower and lavender; the Joyride rounds out the named list. Ocasio calls them potions and elixirs, and the framing is accurate to the method — these are herbal preparations served as cocktails, not cocktails with the alcohol removed.

That method is also the thing to understand before booking. Several of the herbs in regular use here are mildly psychoactive in their own right — damiana and passion flower among them — and adaptogens are pharmacologically active substances rather than flavourings. This is not the same proposition as a non-alcoholic spritz, and for anyone in recovery whose sobriety excludes all mood-altering substances, it is worth asking what is in a given drink before ordering. Ocasio is open about the ingredients; the information is available if you ask for it.

The venue runs by reservation and RSVP only, as ticketed sessions: tea ceremonies, lounge nights and movie nights, plus the free weekly Thirdspace Thursdays gathering for creatives, entrepreneurs and thinkers, which currently runs 11am to 3pm. There is no walking in. Ocasio's stated aim is a social, fully sober space open to everyone rather than one aimed only at people in recovery.

Because everything runs on a booking, this is not somewhere to arrive on the off-chance. Check what session is scheduled before committing: a tea ceremony, a movie night and a lounge evening are very different rooms, and the drinks are built to the occasion rather than ordered from a fixed list. Thirdspace Thursdays is the low-commitment way in — it is free, it runs in the middle of the day, and it is aimed at people who want somewhere to work and talk rather than somewhere to drink.