NØLO

NØLO is, by its own account, the Southeast's first and North Carolina's only dedicated non-alcoholic bottle shop. It was founded in Asheville in 2021 to create more diversity of choice and inclusion in how people socialise, and changed hands in 2024, when Jen and Jason took it over. What happened next is the reason this listing reads differently from most. In the owners' own words: they had only just started having a blast getting out into the shop and the community to host tastings and pop-ups and help customers find their new non-alcoholic favourites, when Hurricane Helene decided to change their direction. The shop was destroyed. For roughly two months NØLO had no home, shifting to online sales with local pickup while Blue Ridge Hiking Company in Asheville and Claywood in Hendersonville opened their doors so customers could still collect orders — a detail the owners went out of their way to thank publicly. On 1 December 2024 it reopened at 178 Broadway Street, inside the new location of Atomic Furnishing.

The range is a genuine specialist's selection rather than a shelf of the obvious brands, organised into beer, spirits, wines and proxies, ready-to-drink, mixers and functionals. Stock runs from an Amethyst botanical spirit in lemon cucumber serrano at $30.99 and Dr. Zero Zero's AmarNo non-alcoholic amaro at $43.95 through to Free Spirits' Kentucky Mule at $16 for four cans — which is the useful spread, since the category now spans everything from a cheap can to a bottle you would open for a dinner party. Two practical notes. This is retail rather than a bar: the shop hosts tastings and pop-ups as organised events, but there is no standing counter to drink at, so plan to take what you buy home. And because it sits inside a furniture showroom rather than behind its own shopfront, it is worth knowing what you are looking for before you arrive.