The Merryweather

Schnitzelburg is the pocket of south Louisville settled by German immigrants in the nineteenth century, still known for the Dainty Contest and for corner bars that have been corner bars for a century. The Merryweather, at 1101 Lydia Street, is the modern version of that — a neighbourhood bar with a kitchen, not a destination cocktail room — and it is precisely because of that positioning that its non-alcoholic list is worth writing about. Serious zero-proof programmes usually appear in expensive cocktail bars where the bartender has time and a budget for components. Finding one in a neighbourhood bar is rarer and, for most people most evenings, more useful.

The standing option is the Sober Ghia Spritz, built on Ghia — the Mediterranean-style non-alcoholic aperitif made from gentian root, yuzu, elderflower and rosemary, which drinks genuinely bitter rather than sweet and has become the default backbone for spritz-shaped drinks without alcohol. Each January the bar goes further and prints a whole alcohol-free menu. The 2026 list ran to a Dry Tai, a Nada Colada, a Mock-Scow Mule and a Not Toddy: a tiki build, a frozen tropical, a ginger-and-lime long drink and a hot spiced drink, which between them cover most of what someone actually wants to order across a month of not drinking. The names are jokes; the drinks are not.

Two things to know before you go. The Dry January menu is seasonal by design, so outside January the reliable order is the Ghia spritz and whatever the bar is building that week — worth asking rather than assuming the full list is up. And this is a bar in the ordinary sense: alcohol is served, the room is loud at weekends, and it is a neighbourhood local rather than a sober space. Schnitzelburg sits south of Germantown, about ten minutes from downtown, and Canary Club and The Breeze in Shelby Park are the nearest other entries in this guide.