Brunswick Aces

Opened as Australia's first permanent non-alcoholic bar and bottle shop, Brunswick Aces sits behind a working botanical distillery at 124 Weston Street in Brunswick East. Co-founders Stephen Lawrence and Cameron Hunt built custom stills to produce Sapiir, a gin-like zero-alcohol spirit; the distillery turns out roughly 3,000 litres of juniper-forward non-alcoholic infusions a week, with the Hearts Sapiir variety carrying notes of sweet citrus and native Australian wattleseed.

The bar's drinks list is anchored on that house spirit. The signature King Louis stirs Hearts Sapiir with coconut water and a cucumber-mint cordial, and the kitchen backs the cocktails with cheese and charcuterie boards. Beyond the house pours, the fridges and shelves stock non-alcoholic beer from Heaps Normal, plus zero-proof wine and spirits from Ovant (Margaret River), NON (Melbourne) and Gnista (Sweden), all available by the glass or bottle.

Attached to the bar is an in-house non-alcoholic bottle shop for taking product home, and the distillery door runs tours and cocktail masterclasses through the week. The bar itself trades Thursday to Saturday evenings from 5pm as walk-ins only, while the distillery door keeps daytime and later hours.

The venue has since reopened its doors to all drinkers, adding a small full-strength offering, but its whole reason for being - and the overwhelming majority of the menu - is the zero-proof program, making it the flagship alcohol-free destination in Melbourne.