Barrel Bar & Grill

Whiskey Row is the restored run of nineteenth-century cast-iron facades on West Main Street that now holds most of Louisville's urban bourbon distilleries and their visitor centres. It is, for a non-drinker, one of the harder blocks in America to spend an evening on. Barrel Bar & Grill sits at 110 West Main in the middle of it, attached to the Louisville Comedy Club, and does something genuinely useful: it serves the city's signature drink in a form someone who does not drink can order.

The Zero Proof Old Fashioned is built on Kentucky 74, the non-alcoholic bourbon distilled in Louisville by Spiritless — a company founded here by three mothers who wanted a drink that let them keep their evenings and their next mornings. Kentucky 74 is made by reverse distillation, which strips the alcohol from a finished distillate while keeping the caramel, vanilla and oak the bourbon has taken from the barrel, and it was named Best Non-Alcoholic Spirit at the L.A. Spirits Awards. Ordering an old fashioned made from it on Whiskey Row is, more than anything else in this guide, the Louisville answer to the question of what a non-drinker does here. The rest of the list is deliberately unserious and works for it: the Pineapple Upside Down Cake on caramel, ginger and grenadine, and the Cinderella, which layers orange and pineapple juice with ginger ale, grenadine and bitters.

The comedy club attachment is the other practical point. A stand-up show gives the evening a structure that is not drinking — you are facing a stage rather than a bar — which makes this one of the easier nights out in the city for someone avoiding alcohol, in the one part of town otherwise built entirely around whiskey tourism. Check show listings when booking, since the room's rhythm follows the club calendar. Proof on Main, six blocks west, is the other downtown entry here and also pours Kentucky 74.