High Praise Rooftop Bar

High Praise sits on the roof of the InterContinental San Antonio Riverwalk on East Pecan Street, in the middle of the downtown hotel district. Its menu has a Zero Proof Cocktails section of three drinks, each made with Ritual Zero Proof spirit: Mediodia (the tequila alternative with cinnamon syrup, grapefruit and lime), Autumn in Paradise (the rum alternative with apple spice syrup, ginger beer and lime) and Currently Vibing (the whiskey alternative with pineapple, lemon and vanilla). Heineken 0.0 and Athletic Run Wild IPA come in cans.

The value here is redundancy, which sounds like faint praise and is not. San Antonio's downtown hotel corridor holds an enormous share of the city's visitors, and a large proportion of any group staying there will include somebody who is not drinking — pregnant, driving, in recovery, on antibiotics, or simply not in the mood. One rooftop with named zero-proof drinks is luck. Two, within walking distance of each other, starts to be a scene. Between High Praise and The Moon's Daughters at the Thompson, a non-drinker downtown has an actual choice of rooftops rather than a single option to hope is open.

Mediodia means midday, which suits Sunday, the one day the room opens at noon.

The schedule is the significant limitation and needs stating plainly: closed Monday through Thursday. It opens Friday and Saturday from 5pm to 10pm and Sunday from noon to 6pm, and it is 21 and over after 7pm. This is a weekend venue, and a midweek visitor will find it shut. Anyone downtown on a Tuesday should head for The Moon's Daughters, which serves from 7am daily, or Double Standard a few streets away. Within its window, though, the view over the river and the named drinks make it a straightforward recommendation. Sunday afternoon is the time to catch it in daylight, when the room opens at noon.