The Venetian Soda Lounge

Most zero-proof programmes are retrofitted onto a bar that already existed. The Venetian Soda Lounge worked the other way round: the soda came first. Venetian Ginger Ale was a Burlington brand that disappeared during the Second World War, and the family behind it brought the recipe back in 2017 before opening this room on Pine Street in 2022, in the middle of the South End Arts District. The result is a bar whose identity is a soft drink, which turns out to be an excellent foundation for taking alcohol-free drinking seriously.

The menu prints Zero Proof mocktails as its own section. The Clean Getaway is a straight alcohol-free gin sour — CleanCo gin, lemon, simple syrup, served up in a chilled coupe. The Yes-groni is the negroni answer, with a non-alcoholic Amaro Lucano, CleanCo gin and white grape juice over a large rock. Perp on Maple uses CleanCo's alcohol-free whiskey with a maple cream syrup, bitters and seltzer, which is about as Vermont as a highball gets. Two more work without any spirit substitute at all: the Green Light Mule, built on the house ginger ale with lemon and mint, and Mr. White in the Kitchen, a smoked rosemary grapefruit syrup with lime and tonic. Nightcap Confidential closes the list with flash-chilled espresso, vanilla and cream.

Underneath them sit the seven house craft sodas at $5 — ginger ale, maple cream, strawberry hibiscus, raspberry lime, spiced pineapple, cranberry lemon and cherry lime — which also turn into floats, creemees and milkshakes. The kitchen runs to hot franks and sausages.

The room is licensed, so this is not an alcohol-free venue: wine, beer and amaro are on the list too. What makes it unusual is that a non-drinker ordering here is choosing from the bar's signature category rather than its consolation one. Live jazz most weeks; closed Monday and Tuesday, and it does not open before 4:30pm.