Mitch e Amaro

Mitch e Amaro opened in February 2019 at 306 Armour Road in North Kansas City, in the former Le Monde Bakery, from brothers Josh and Ben Edwards. It is genuinely two businesses in one room: the centrepiece bar is an integral part of the store in both form and function, separating the retail at the front from the lounge at the back, so you can buy a bottle, buy a book about bottles, or sit down and have someone else make the drink. Josh is a career bartender who started the day after he turned 21 and has worked everything from big nightclubs to corporate restaurants; Ben describes himself as a software nerd and cocktail enthusiast who got into this because he ran out of room at home for bottles. Their stated goal, as Josh put it to The Pitch, is to make it accessible. The shop is named after Mitch, a rescued pitbull and aggressive cuddler who likes to eat big ice cubes. Doors open at 11am daily, running to 11pm on Friday and Saturday.

The bar keeps a printed section headed "Non-Alcoholic", and every drink on it is $10 — the same price whether or not there is alcohol in the glass. The programme is built almost entirely on Seedlip, with all three expressions available: Garden 108, Spice 94 and Grove 42 can each be had simply with soda, tonic or Fever-Tree ginger beer. Beyond those, the built drinks are proper cocktail constructions. Pen-No-Cillin uses Spice 94 with lemon and a honey ginger syrup. Garden Sour is Garden 108 with lemon and simple syrup. The Rabarbar-Oh-No! Highball works Grove 42 with rhubarb bitters into a long drink, and Unbuzzed combines Spice 94 with cold brew from local roaster Colony. One drink carries a caveat the bar prints itself rather than hiding: Smoke & Spice uses a Bittermens Hellfire habanero shrub, and the menu notes plainly that the shrub contains a trace amount of alcohol. The retail shelves also stock Bare Zero-Proof, Kin Euphorics and Ritual Zero-Proof to take home.