house or back house; and there’s a lot of these
forward-thinking restaurateurs that are putting
these concepts into place.”
Solomonov has been outspoken about being
sober on social media, and zero-proof drinks
have become a way for McAllister to give back
to the chef.

“I put a lot of eff ort into creating cocktails.

And I get to taste the food that Michael makes
and that the restaurants make, and it’s like,
almost like something I wasn’t able to give back
to him,” McAllister said. “So it made me want to
put more eff ort — just as much, if not even more
— into these zero-proof drinks, so that I could
give something for him to enjoy, something for
him to be excited about and showcase my talent.”
But unlike bars that off er cranberry juice or
ginger ale as their only nonalcoholic off erings,
restaurants are putting just as much, if not
more eff ort into their booze-free beverages.

“It just aligned with our food menu, that
has seasonal vegetables and very vegetable-for-
ward dishes, so I thought that was important
for the concept,” Marquis said.

Charlie was a sinner. has had mocktails on
its menu since its 2014 opening, and Marquis
developed a zero-proof gin for the restaurant,
using glycerin to mimic the rich mouthfeel of
drinking alcohol and botanicals such as juni-
per to recreate the spirit’s herbal quality.

At Vedge, the bar team considers what
26 JUNE 16, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
makes a good drink without booze as its base.

“As you’re creating drinks, you’re also con-
sidering how they could be used without the
alcohol as its structure,” Rieff said.

Rieff recently developed a carrot-ginger
shrub to be used in both a cocktail and mock-
tail for the restaurant. Th e shrub has a vinegar
base infused with fresh produce. It’s one of
several ingredients that goes into one drink.

Vedge also has a drink with a pineapple
syrup containing more than 15 components,
which takes hours to make. But it’s the eff ort
that sets these drinks apart.

“It’s not that you can’t do it at home. It’s that
you also need an open grill, and you also need
high heat, and you also need access to all the
spices and to know that those need to be toasted,”
Rieff said. “And so a lot of times people are like,
‘Wow, these drinks are amazing,’ and it’s because
of the time and eff ort that’s put into them.”
For both a restaurant’s effi ciency and phi-
losophy around quality ingredients, bar
programs aren’t cutting corners to create
mocktails. While cocktails are still the most
popular drink items on the menu, mocktails
have become far from an aft erthought.

“I look at zero-proof and my cocktails
through the same lens,” McAllister said. “I’m
putting in the same amount of eff ort.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Steven McAllister is the beverage director for CookNSolo.

Photos by Colby Kingston