The Rosecomb

A useful way to judge a bar's commitment to alcohol-free drinks is to look at how they are named. Most places call them mocktails and stop there. The Rosecomb, on Barton Avenue on Chattanooga's North Shore, gives its non-alcoholic list a conceit of its own and rotates it — the current lineup is named after Southern authors, which means somebody sits down and rewrites the whole thing each time the theme turns over.

The drinks justify the effort. The Grady Hendrix — named for the Charleston horror novelist — is holy basil, cucumber, lime, serrano and agave, a savoury, herbal, faintly hot drink with no interest in being sweet. The Natasha goes the other way: hibiscus and Bengal spice tea with ginger, pineapple and lime, a build that gets its body from brewed tea rather than from juice. In colder months a mulled apple cider joins them, which in a city at the foot of the Appalachians is the right seasonal answer.

What these have in common is that they are constructed from infusions, teas and fresh produce rather than assembled from bottled mixers, and that they are conceived as their own drinks rather than as subtractions from existing cocktails. Chattanooga's own daily newsletter, NOOGAtoday, has picked the bar out for exactly this in its round-up of where to drink without alcohol in the city.

The practical picture is good too. The Rosecomb opens at 4pm Monday through Friday and runs to midnight, 1am on Friday and Saturday, with a 2pm start on Saturday and an 11am to 4pm Sunday service — so it covers a weekday evening, a late night and a Sunday brunch, which few rooms in this guide manage. The North Shore location puts it across the river from downtown, walkable from the Walnut Street Bridge.