Behind the Backbar at One of the Most Exciting Nonalcoholic Bars

“Part of running a nonalcoholic bar, I’m finding, is stagecraft,” says Bar Palmina owner Nikki Graziano. “Something I found when I was trying to find nonalcoholic spaces, before opening the bar, was they just felt like daycares. It’s kind of a mean thing to say. But they didn’t feel like spaces built with intention.” 

Bar Palmina cares about the details. When I first came across the space on Instagram, the thing that stood out to me was how great the drinks look. This dirty Martini looks appropriately briny, the glass elegant and frosty; this sour’s got a delightful froth. It sounds simple, but too often, an N/A drink doesn’t look and feel like an adult one. A photographer by trade, Graziano’s attention to the aesthetic of her drinks and her bar seems to come naturally. When you get to “sit at a bar that comes to the right height, and have a cocktail in a glass that functions the same way [as a full proof drink], and it smells nice, and the light’s nice,” she says, “it makes a difference.”

Of course, though, it’s not all about aesthetics. Graziano uses bartending techniques like clarification and infusion, and does extensive research on the now vast—and growing—nonalcoholic spirits scene, to make drinks that taste worthy of sidling up to the bar, too. “Unfortunately there’s a lot of garbage out there,” she admits. “But the longer I do this, the more I find nuanced differences, the same way that you would in alcoholic spirits. Sure, there’s 75 amaros, but they truly are all different.”