Close your ears, Ernest Hemingway: The fastest growing segment of the cocktail market is the one with drinks that … don’t actually have any alcohol.

It’s not just a Dry January thing either. Bars and restaurants across the Bay Area are increasingly showing off their finest mocktails and clever virgin creations in the hopes of solving a riddle: Non-alcoholic beverage sales may have risen 32 times faster than the rest of the alcohol market in 2023, but N/A drinks — especially the canned variety — still come with a stigma.

They taste terrible.

“A lot of the products aren’t that good,” says Francis Kulaga, beverage director at San Francisco’s upscale Anomaly.

Kulaga was putting it nicely.

“Most of them suck,” says Gabe Chavez, general manager at San Francisco’s Last Rites tiki bar.

“Not to throw shade,” says Beau du Bois, VP of bar and spirits for Puesto, which has Mexican restaurants in Santa Clara and Concord, “but sometimes I taste them, and I’m like, ‘Has the person who made it tasted this?’”

Some bars and restaurants, like Anomaly, scoured the market to find a few favorite premade N/A products, but an increasing number of Bay Area cocktail bars are creating their own right down to the non-alcoholic spirits.

“I would rather make a quality product than pay for something that’s inferior,” says Chavez.

At Last Rites, Chavez reverse-engineered the tasting notes to create three housemade non-alcoholic spirits: an N/A Clarin that echoes the flavor of Haitian rum, an N/A cask spirit that mimics whiskey and an N/A “No-Maro,” a play on an Italian Amaro.

“I took the classic Vermouth ingredients, barks and woods, paired that with citrus, and it has a couple teas as a base,” Chavez says.

At Puesto, du Bois makes his own N/A tequila using roasted corn, robust teas, tamarind and other ingredients, then serves it in a classic margarita or cantarito.

But even after all the work — and often higher costs — required to create a robust N/A cocktail, beverage directors say they feel awkward charging what they would for a regular cocktail. So much so, that many price their mocktails a few dollars less than a standard cocktail, despite the actual costs involved.

“We struggle with that constantly,” says Wendy Bravo, co-owner of San Jose’s Fox Tale Fermentation Project. “I’m working super hard to make these fermented syrups that take anywhere between a week to sometimes months, if I’m making cool shrubs from scraps or making the bitters. We’re sourcing all this fruit. It’s a lot of work.”

But Bravo thinks it’s worth it. Competition is leading to innovation. The N/A drinks are tasting good enough to stand on their own. The trends are clearly pointing in the N/A direction. And more importantly, Bravo says, friends who don’t drink want to visit her at the bar and sip something delicious.

“People are excited about not drinking alcohol — and drinking things with actual benefits, like herbs and botanicals with calming qualities, things that are good for your immune system,” she says. “People love it. It’s not just a bunch of sugar.”

If you’re looking for the best N/A cocktails this January, you’ll find them at bars from Santa Clara to Concord, San Jose and beyond. Here’s just a sampling.

Anomaly, San Francisco

Chef Mike Lanham has a creative and seasonal tasting menu that earned the restaurant a spot in the Michelin restaurant guide. The alcohol pairing was a hit, too.

“But I kept seeing customers coming in and drinking water. They weren’t super engaged with the beverage program, so we decided to build out the N/A program,” says Kulaga, the beverage director. “We’ve seen a huge uptick. And because half our beverage sales are with food pairings, we thought, ‘Why don’t we expand that and offer N/A pairings?’ It’s been super successful, and it’s very inclusive.”

Kulaga’s favorite products: Free, a New Zealand company that makes a non-alcoholic Cuba Libre (rum and Coke), Leitz, a German brand that makes sparkling wines, and Proxies, a Canadian brand which makes bubbly rosé. And the most popular N/A items at Anomaly are the spritzes made by Portland’s For Bitter or Worse.

“Herbaceous and bitter flavors are the most successful at mimicking the alcohol taste,” Kulaga said.

Details >> Open from 6 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday at 600 Sutter St. in San Francisco; anomalysf.com.

Bar Iris, San Francisco

Stationed next door to Nisei, a Michelin-starred Japanese-American restaurant also owned by David Yoshimura, Bar Iris opened in 2021 as a Japanese culture-driven cocktail bar with a curated list of eclectic spirits.

Bar manager Timofei Osipenko has tried to give the same attention and detail to his N/A menu, not by replicating the alcoholic ingredients, but by “recreating the drinking experience,” Osipenko says. “We do the research about the culture, ingredients and techniques, so you don’t have to.”

Bar Iris makes its own N/A versions of signature cocktails such as the Toyohashi ($17), which features N/A gin and red shiso.

The results have been so popular with non-drinkers and drinkers alike, Bar Iris has had multiple full-bar buyouts recently in which the client requested an exclusively N/A menu.

Details >> Opens at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday and 3 p.m. Friday-Saturday at 2310 Polk St. in San Francisco; bar-iris.com.

Fox Tale Fermentation Project, San Jose

Ever since the brewery opened in 2022, the N/A cocktails and kombucha program have been a large part of its business. Using housemade vinegars, miso, fermented syrups and lacto-fermented produce, Fox Tale has produced an N/A menu that aims to be more than just fancy lemonade (although they have that, too).

Co-owner Wendy Bravo says their most popular N/A cocktail is a margarita with a twist. It uses nopales syrup and damiana.

“It’s so close. We give people something (that) tastes like a proper margarita,” Bravo says. “Then the menu gets a little weirder, and we have some crazy things, too.”

If you’re feeling adventurous, try the Thisbe’s Veil ($10), featuring fermented mulberry shrub, meadowsweet, lavender, rose hips, orange peel, fennel, pink peppercorns, sage, heather, mulberry leaf and pomegranate.

“People who get them love them,” Bravo says.

Details >> Opens at noon, Wednesday through Sunday, at 30 E. Santa Clara St. in San Jose; foxtalefermentationproject.com.

Last Rites, San Francisco

From the same tiki bar that features the Caldera’s Curse ($60), a flaming bowl of rum and brandy meant to serve four, comes an ever-expanding menu of low-ABV and non-alcoholic drinks.

Chavez uses his housemade spirits for six N/A cocktails, including the popular Mocking Bird ($14), a play on a Jungle Bird that includes the “No-Maro” cask N/A spirit, salted molasses, lime, pineapple and cane syrup.

Last Rites also makes two drinks with complex juices and housemade syrups that give customers the option to add N/A or alcoholic spirits, including the Golden Idol ($14), a play on a pina colada that includes turmeric milk, coconut, orange, pineapple, lemon and nutmeg.

“You see a lot of non-alcoholic red bitter amaros, vermouths dense with flavor, because those are definitely the easier ones to re-create,” Chavez says.

Details >> Open from 5 to 11 p.m. Sunday-Wednesday, until 1 a.m. Thursday and from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Friday-Saturday at 718 14th St. in San Francisco; lastritesbar.com.

Little Bird Bar, Oakland

Some of the most intriguing non-alcoholic cocktails are served at Little Bird Bar, which opened in November in Oakland’s former Radio Bar space.

A bird-themed bar whose food menu showcases custom pickles made by Golden State Pickle Works, Little Bird pours three N/A cocktails, including a Berrly Legal ($8) made with strawberry brine, lemon, simple syrup and seltzer. The Caesar Caesar ($8) features Clamato, yellow pepper brine, lemon and Worcestershire. And the Green Roots ($8) mixes green bean-rutabaga brine with fish sauce.

Details: >>Open from 4 p.m.-2 a.m. daily at 435 13th St., Oakland; littlebirdbar.com.