LouElla Wine, Beer & Beverage

LouElla describes itself as equal parts wine shop, bar and community hangout, and it sits on West Geer Street in Old North Durham with Saturday tastings and a bar you can drink at rather than only buy from. It sells alcohol — this is not an alcohol-free shop — but its non-alcoholic range is substantial enough to make it a destination in its own right rather than a place that happens to stock a few cans.

The collection runs to around sixty non-alcoholic products, and the breadth is what distinguishes it. On beer there is Burial, the Asheville brewery whose Chaosmachine NA IPA is one of the better American examples, and Untitled Art's non-alcoholic variety pack. On wine there is Leitz's Eine Zwei Zero range from the Rheingau. On cocktails there is St. Agrestis' Phony Negroni, the bottled bittersweet aperitif that has become the default good answer for people who want something adult. There is Eric Bordelet's Perlant, a sparkling pear juice from a Normandy cidermaker, which is the kind of thing that only turns up in shops where somebody is actually choosing the list. Around that sit tonics and social seltzers — CANN, Crescent 9, High Rise, Resident Culture, Happy Bird — and a range of Five Flowers lemonades and mixers.

The products come from Austria, France, Germany, Spain, the USA and South America, with the largest single group American. For anyone building a home bar without alcohol, or looking for something to bring to a dinner that is not sparkling water, this is the best-stocked room in the metro.

Two practical notes. The shop also carries Delta-9 and THC products alongside the non-alcoholic range, so read labels carefully if you are avoiding those. And the web address has moved: louellawine.com now redirects to louelladurham.com.