Water Witch Tiki

Tiki bars are usually the worst place in a city to ask for something alcohol-free — the whole format is built on rum and volume. Water Witch, on Bull Street in the Starland District, is the exception, and the reason is that its non-alcoholic drinks are made from the same pantry as the rest of the menu rather than from a bottle of juice kept under the bar.

The Non-Alcoholic section runs four drinks and prices them at $8 and $9, a dollar or two under the rum builds. The Fountain of Youth is chamomile tea with green cardamom, sage and lemon, given body with a plant-based foam and finished with grapefruit bitters — the technique a good bar uses on an egg-white sour, applied without the egg or the spirit. The Tarmarindo is the tropical one: a tamarind-mango-mint purée with coconut, toasted rice syrup, pineapple, lime and Thai bitters. The Farkleberry is the simplest and the most refreshing, a house blueberry shrub with grapefruit and soda. The Don the Honeycomber is the show-off — white grape, peach, honey, orange, ginger, chamomile tea and turmeric, built around a Sichuan-hibiscus bitters the bar makes in-house.

Alongside them the cans list carries three Athletic Brewing beers at $7: the Lite lager, Athletic Copper cerveza and the IPA, all listed with their origin in Milford, Connecticut in the same format as the alcoholic cans. Nothing about the presentation treats them as a concession.

Practical notes: the bar is 21-and-over, which rules it out for a family stop; it does not open until 5pm from Monday to Thursday; it opens at 11am on Friday and Saturday and runs to 1am; and it is closed all day Sunday. Starland is a walkable stretch, so it pairs naturally with Kava House ten blocks north on the same street.