At Big Bar in Los Angeles, lead bartender Abigail Smith built four drinks around four different zero-proof spirits. Together, they show how much range the category can carry.
When we filmed Zero Proof Week at Big Bar in Los Angeles, the bar's menu theme was video games. The non-alcoholic drinks followed the same idea, built around driving games.
One of them was Off The Line, Abigail Smith's Gran Turismo cocktail built with The Pathfinder, espresso, yuzu and chile.
Smith wanted the drink to have an engine.
The Pathfinder already had what she describes as a gritty, earthy quality and plenty of bite. Espresso gave the drink another dark, aggressive layer. Fresno and habanero chiles supplied heat. Yuzu tied the drink back to the Japanese game that inspired it.
That is how Smith tends to talk about zero-proof cocktails. She doesn't begin with what is missing from them. She begins with the spirit, the idea and the drink she wants to build.
"I start with the story and the flavor profile of the spirit," she told me, "because it has a story to tell."
Smith is the lead bartender at Big Bar in Los Feliz and has been building its non-alcoholic program for years. Drinks writer Derek Brown singled out her zero-proof Supernova as his favorite drink of the night during a 2023 tour of alcohol-free drinking in Los Angeles. Her full-proof work can get strange too. Imbibe published her Red Zeppelin, a Margarita built around salted red onion syrup.
For Zero Proof Week, Smith built four drinks around four different spirits. They also happen to cover much of the range a serious zero-proof menu needs.
When I spoke with Tomonotomo founder Amanda Chen for Why Aren't Serious Zero-Proof Cocktails on the Menu?, she argued that a good program should start with at least three styles: something long and refreshing, something shaken, and something stirred with the spirit more exposed.
Smith's four hit all three.
Carrot Top
Carrot Top starts with a familiar format: a gin and tonic.
Arkay Gin goes into the shaker with cinnamon carrot syrup and fresh lemon, then gets strained over ice and topped with Q Tonic Water.
The carrot brings sweetness and an earthy edge. Cinnamon adds warmth. Lemon keeps both from getting heavy. Q Tonic brings bitterness, carbonation and a dry finish that turns the drink into a long cocktail rather than juice and soda.
It is a good example of how a familiar zero-proof format can be pushed without becoming unrecognizable. You still understand the drink before you taste it.
Carrot Top
2 oz Arkay Gin
3/4 oz cinnamon carrot syrup
3/4 oz fresh lemon juice
Q Tonic Water, to top
Shake the Arkay Gin, cinnamon carrot syrup and lemon with ice. Strain into a Collins glass over fresh ice, top with Q Tonic Water and garnish with a long orange twist.
Glass: Collins
Ice: Cubes
Garnish: Long orange twist
View the full Carrot Top recipe and cinnamon carrot syrup prep →
Golden Hour
Golden Hour moves in the opposite direction.
It is Smith's stirred drink, built roughly in the format of an Old Fashioned. A saffron sugar cube, non-alcoholic cherry bitters and a splash of Q Club Soda are muddled in a rocks glass before Lyre's Amaretti goes over a large cube.
Lyre's describes Amaretti as almond-forward, with marzipan, vanilla, peach and a gentle bitter finish. Smith uses saffron to push the aromatic side of the spirit, while All The Bitter's New Orleans Spiced Cherry Bitters bring tart cherry, spice and bitterness.
The Q Club Soda has a quieter job than the tonic in Carrot Top. It helps dissolve the sugar cube and opens the drink without introducing another dominant flavor.
The important part is restraint. There is nowhere for the base to hide in a drink like this.
Not every zero-proof cocktail needs citrus, juice, a complicated syrup and five supporting ingredients. Sometimes the question is whether the spirit can hold the center of the glass.
Golden Hour
2 oz Lyre's Amaretti
1 saffron sugar cube
5 drops All The Bitter New Orleans Spiced Cherry Bitters
Splash of Q Club Soda
Add the sugar cube, bitters and Q Club Soda to a rocks glass and muddle. Add one large ice cube and the Amaretti, then stir in the glass. Express a lemon peel over the drink and garnish with the peel and a cherry.
Glass: Rocks
Ice: One large cube
Garnish: Lemon peel and cherry
View Golden Hour in the Zero Proof Cocktail Archive →
Off The Line
Off The Line is the odd one.
Only two components go into the shaker: The Pathfinder and an espresso yuzu habanero syrup. But the syrup is doing considerably more work than the ingredient count suggests.
It combines hot espresso with Fresno chile, habanero and yuzu. The Pathfinder brings its own combination of fermented hempseed and botanicals, including ginger, sage and juniper.
Smith describes the spirit as having enough "bite and power" that she wanted to build something equally assertive around it. The Gran Turismo concept gave her the rest of the vocabulary: espresso, chile, heat and what she calls the burning rubber.
It is a strange description of a drink until you taste the logic behind it.
The result is a reminder that zero-proof cocktails do not have to live exclusively in the bright, refreshing end of a menu. They can be dark, bitter, spicy and slightly confrontational.
Off The Line
2 oz The Pathfinder
1 oz espresso yuzu habanero syrup
Shake with ice and strain into a chilled Nick & Nora glass. Garnish with a Fresno chile slice.
Glass: Nick & Nora
Serve: Up
Garnish: Fresno chile slice
View the full Off The Line recipe and espresso yuzu habanero syrup prep →
Smoke Signal
Smoke Signal returns to another recognizable frame.
Fluère Smoked Agave, fresh lime and ginger syrup give it the basic architecture of a Margarita: spirit, acid and sweetness.
Fluère describes its Smoked Agave as vegetal and agave-forward, with black pepper and smoked hickory. The ginger syrup has a simple job. It supplies sweetness while extending the heat already present in the spirit.
That simplicity matters.
A zero-proof cocktail does not become more serious because the ingredient list gets longer. If the base already gives the bartender smoke, pepper and vegetal character, the rest of the drink can support those qualities instead of manufacturing complexity around them.
Smoke Signal
2 oz Fluère Smoked Agave
3/4 oz ginger syrup
3/4 oz fresh lime juice
Shake with ice and strain into a chilled Nick & Nora glass. Garnish with an orange peel on a pick.
Glass: Nick & Nora
Serve: Up
Garnish: Orange peel
View the full Smoke Signal recipe and ginger syrup prep →
Four drinks are enough to make the point
These cocktails do not share a formula.
Carrot Top is the long one, built tall with tonic. Golden Hour is the stirred one, with the spirit exposed over a large cube. Off The Line and Smoke Signal are both shaken and served up, but they occupy very different territory: one dark, spicy and bitter, the other smoky, bright and citrus-driven.
Even the mixers are doing different jobs. Q Tonic is a defining part of Carrot Top's structure, bringing bitterness and carbonation to the finished drink. Q Club Soda is almost invisible in Golden Hour, used for dilution and to help integrate the sugar and bitters. Both are there because the drink needs them, not simply because the recipe needs something fizzy.
That range is the point.
Smith says the zero-proof market has "blown up" over the last few years, leaving bartenders with what she calls "wonderful toys to play with." More products mean more ways to build for different palates and different moments without separating the non-drinking guest from the ritual of ordering a cocktail.
Her argument for bars is straightforward: bring a zero-proof spirit into the program the way you would any other spirit. Learn what it does. Build around the flavors already there. Give the drink the same attention you would anything else on the menu.
Or, as Smith puts it, give it a little elbow grease and don't be afraid of it.
Explore the full Zero Proof Cocktail Archive for complete recipes, prep instructions and more drinks from Zero Proof Week.
Zero Proof Week · November 8–14, 2026
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