Mockery Zero Proof

Karlyta Williams, a lifelong Detroiter, built Mockery Zero Proof out of a personal reckoning with drinking during the pandemic. She started mixing non-alcoholic drinks for herself and friends, spent three years training as a zero-proof bartender, and ran a mobile NA bar business before opening the brick-and-mortar shop at 7400 W. McNichols — soft-opening November 30, 2024, with a grand opening on January 2, 2025, deliberately timed to Dry January.

The shop is a retail bottle shop first: non-alcoholic spirits, wines, and beers sold to go, alongside glassware and other sober-social goods. Beyond the shelf, Williams runs Private Pours, a bookable one-hour closed-door experience for private groups — guests pick either a Guided Zero-Proof Wine Flight, a seated tasting she narrates herself, or a Custom Zero-Proof Cocktail Experience, where each guest gets one bespoke mocktail built around their own flavor preferences and mood, with additional drinks available to purchase separately. It's positioned for birthdays, girlfriend get-togethers, baby showers, and team events, and the shop has hosted themed gatherings like a February 2026 Galentine's zero-proof social.

Mockery sits in Bagley, on Detroit's northwest side within the Livernois–McNichols (Live6) corridor. Per a Voyage Michigan interview, the location has personal resonance for Williams — it echoes her great-grandparents' old neighborhood market in Southwest Detroit, a full-circle moment for a business she describes as being about connection and belonging as much as beverages. The shop's stated belief is that "celebration doesn't require alcohol to be meaningful," framing the space around presence rather than escape — a theme Williams returns to in the shop's January blog post reframing Dry January as a mindful reset rather than restriction.