Fermenteria

Fermenteria sits on East Commerce Street on San Antonio's Eastside, and its name is also its method: the drinks programme is built on fermentation. For an alcohol-free guide that is close to the ideal starting point.

Here is why. The reason most non-alcoholic drinks disappoint is structural rather than a failure of imagination. Remove alcohol and you remove warmth, length and a particular kind of dryness, and what is usually left is fruit and sugar. Fermentation puts those qualities back by a different route — it generates acidity, tannin, faint funk and complexity, which is precisely what makes kombucha, kefir and tepache interesting to drink rather than merely sweet. A bar already fermenting for its main list has the technique and the cultures on hand, so its alcohol-free drinks are not a compromise built from a different toolkit.

The named options reflect that. Butterfly Blossom leans on butterfly pea flower, which is dramatic in colour and mildly earthy. The pineapple coconut is the tropical register. The strawberry lime tulsi is the most interesting — tulsi is holy basil, aromatic and slightly peppery, and it gives a fruit drink an adult, herbal finish that keeps it from reading as a soft drink.

The hours are the catch and they are strict: closed Monday through Wednesday and on Sunday, open Thursday from 4pm to 10pm and Friday and Saturday to midnight. It is a three-night-a-week venue. Within that window it is one of the more distinctive rooms in the city, and the Eastside location puts it slightly off the tourist path in a way that suits it. Anyone travelling from downtown should treat it as a deliberate trip rather than a stop, and check the day before setting out.