Hecate

Hecate opened on April 7, 2022 in the Back Bay, tucked below Krasi, the Greek wine-focused restaurant its team already ran, and entered through a discreet door in Public Alley 443 rather than off the street. The bar is named for Hecate, the Greek goddess associated with witchcraft, night and crossroads, and the whole room commits to that: low light, occult iconography, and a menu bound as a book of spells in which every drink is attached to a piece of folklore. Boston.com covered the opening on April 1, 2022, describing it as a place where you enter the realm of spirits, and Boston Magazine ran a first-look the same day. Boston Magazine has since returned to it in its running guide to the city's best mocktails, noting that the book of spells also holds unconventional spirit-free options and that the room's atmosphere is the draw whether you are drinking alcohol or not.

The zero-proof list is short and built to the same specification as the alcoholic one. Copal Oro pairs the copal oro base with clarified milk, a technique borrowed straight from milk-punch practice. Theta Range is the most involved drink on the list, layering chicory, beetroot, fig, hibiscus and pomegranate over copal oro and clarified milk with lemon, aquafaba, saline and club soda. Eighth Tower runs herbal and bitter, using devil's claw, yarrow and mugwort with DRAM black bitters, lemon, aquafaba, saline and soda. Secret Chiefs is the simplest and driest of the four, built on juniper, cinchona bark and a lime peel demerara, and reads as a tonic-adjacent aperitif. The aquafaba and clarified-milk techniques matter here, because they are what give the alcohol-free drinks the weight and texture that non-alcoholic cocktails most often lack. Hecate trades Tuesday through Saturday from 5pm to 1am and is closed Sunday and Monday.