Virago Spirits

Virago Spirits is a Richmond distillery producing rum, gin and liqueurs, with a tasting room attached in the Scott's Addition area. On the face of it, a distillery tasting room is the least promising venue in a city for someone who is not drinking — the entire purpose of the room is to sample distilled alcohol.

Which is what makes its non-alcoholic offering interesting. Virago pours zero-proof versions of several of its own cocktails, drawing on flavours including smoked raspberry, vanilla, orange and pecan. These are not bought-in mocktails; they are built by the people who develop the spirits, using the same syrups, infusions and technique the bar already keeps behind the counter. When a distillery does this it tends to do it well, because flavour construction is the whole business — the only thing being removed is the ethanol, and everything else that makes a drink interesting is already in the building.

The practical value is social. Scott's Addition has become a distillery, brewery and cidery trail, and it is a genuinely enjoyable afternoon — unless you are the person in the group who cannot participate, in which case it is several hours of watching other people taste things. A tasting room that pours you a considered smoked-raspberry serve while everyone else works through the rum flight changes that from an endurance exercise into a normal outing.

Hours are limited and worth checking: closed Monday and Tuesday, 4pm to 9:30pm Wednesday to Friday, from 2pm on Saturday, and 2pm to 6:30pm on Sunday. The grade is an honest 3 — the drinks are real and made in-house, but this is a distillery tasting room rather than a venue with a standing zero-proof menu, so ask what they are pouring when you arrive. The staff develop the spirits themselves, so the answer is usually more interesting than the question deserves.