Raleigh’s first spirit-free bar opens in one of downtown’s most beloved dining rooms
Bottles will be popping New Year’s Eve, but at Raleigh’s newest bar there is a guarantee of a hangover-free morning.
The Umbrella Dry Bar debuts as Raleigh’s first spirit-free cocktail bar, offering a celebratory space for the sober-living and sober-curious.
“We wanted to create a space that’s able to feel sophisticated without the environmental pressure (of alcohol),” Umbrella co-owner Meg Paradise said. “I love the social aspect of getting dressed up and sitting with a beautiful background.”
Umbrella will hold a New Year’s Eve bash Dec. 31 and then have its grand opening Jan. 5.
The opening coincides with Dry January, a popular month-long movement where many people who drink alcohol abstain for the month, often in an effort to reflect and reevaluate their relationship with alcohol.
“As we’re coming up on what should be a pretty busy month, we’re here to help anybody at any stage of their journey who’s interested in drinking less, or just doesn’t want to drink that day, or who wants to just stop altogether,” co-owner Kevin Barry said. “We’re here for guests to get the new year off on the right foot, or simply just a different foot.”
Sober-living trend
The market and environment for spirit-free drinks and bars has ascended dramatically in the last few years, along with interest in and access to non-alcoholic beverages. Just a few years ago, the best sober diners could hope for was one or two alcohol-free cocktails on the menu. Now it’s common to see a half-dozen or more options.
In a recent Gallup study, the youngest generation of legal drinkers is drinking less than the previous generations, with 62 percent of Gen Z reporting drinking at least occasionally, down 10 percentage points from 20 years ago.
Even the language is evolving, from “mocktails” to Umbrella’s preferred “non-alcoholic cocktails.”
“We specifically don’t use the word mocktail,” Paradise said. “Take the Shirley Temple. It has child-like connotations. Our drinks are grown-up, elevated and well-crafted.”’
Umbrella will also revive one of Raleigh’s most beloved dining spaces, as it takes over the former Garland restaurant space at 14 W. Martin St. Paradise and Barry said they’ve refinished the floors, bringing back the honey glow of old hardwoods and replaced the back bar with glass shelving and a new mural. The original Garland bar will remain.
“(The space) has incredible energy,” Paradise said. “It’s lively and vibrant and we’re just bringing it back to life.”
On Umbrella’s non-alcoholic cocktail menu
The menu will have its standards and mix in seasonal cocktails throughout the year. Barry, who has been sober for six years, said the spirit-free offerings of today represent a giant leap forward.
“The first time I tried our drinks, I haven’t tasted alcohol in six years, these are in a different league than the club soda and muddled mint you used to see,” Barry said.
The Umbrella menu and bottle list includes both alcohol-free and non-alcoholic drinks, which have no more than .5 percent alcohol by volume. The cocktails are often meant to mimic the flavors of classic drinks, with spirit-free gins and bourbons as the backbones, while others aim to offer new and distinctive flavors.
“We try to provide a broad spectrum,” Paradise said. “Some drinks are designed to mimic how you would use a spirit and others are not designed to mimic one specific thing. The flavor profile of alcohol can be triggering for some and we don’t want that to be the vibe.”
There will be a bottle shop component to Umbrella, with the bar selling the sometimes hard-to-find wines and spirits served on the menu.
“Because a lot of these brands are fairly new, launching in the last one to four years, we’ve really connected with the founders of these spirits,” Paradise said. “We have a really delicious sparkling wine — Joyus — that’s de-alcoholized, so it is actually wine that’s had the alcohol removed. People try it and say, ‘This is what I’m looking for.’”
▪ Umbrella’s New Year’s Eve bash: The event starts at 9 p.m. and is $100 per person. That includes two cocktails, a sparkling wine toast and dancing.
This story was originally published December 12, 2023 at 1:50 PM.
