First employed in the famous Benton’s Old-Fashioned at PDT in 2007, fat-washing has evolved to encompass a whole wave of spirit-infusion techniques. At its simplest, fat-washing requires melting a fat—say, coconut oil or animal fat—infusing it into a spirit, freezing the mixture, then straining out the solids for a bolder, fuller-bodied flavor. Try the technique with coconut oil, chile oil and even peanut butter.

Without alcohol, it’s still a challenge to address the lack of texture, mouthfeel, brightness or the familiar warmth that’s expected, but amaro has an advantage over other spirits “because you are still able to achieve the familiar flavors coming from macerating traditional amaro ingredients like herbs, botanicals and citrus,” says Robby Dow, owner of Bespoke, an Italian-inspired, all-day café and cocktail bar in Wilmington, North Carolina. For those who don’t drink, Dow says, these spirits present “a very special opportunity for inclusion while still providing a quality product that tastes great.” 

In addition to being enjoyed neat or in N/A drinks, nonalcoholic amari are making their way into spirited drinks, too. “Most people drinking nonalcoholic drinks aren’t necessarily sober; they’re simply looking for alternatives to integrate into their drinking habits,” says Michael Toscano, East Coast Regional Director for The Pathfinder, maker of a bartender beloved N/A product. 

Given the dynamic nature of bittersweet, herbal liqueurs, I’m guilty of stretching open my well-worn bitter umbrella to encompass a wide range when it comes to what makes an amaro, an amaro. But in this case, I’m spotlighting some of my personal picks that would slot well into anywhere a digestif might. Read on to learn more about five nonalcoholic amaro expressions that have my full attention.

This cocktail first appeared in print in 1929 in Frank Shay’s Drawn from the Wood. It featured gin, Bacardi rum and Cointreau. By the next year, it had traveled across the Atlantic with two crucial changes—swapping out gin in favor of Cognac and the addition of lemon juice—that pushed it into Sidecar territory. The Savoy Cocktail Book inclusion ensured the Between the Sheets’ legacy, and it’s the source from which Gannon first came across the drink 20 years ago. 

Gannon has been tweaking his recipe for the Between the Sheets for the past two decades. He recalls adding a significant measure of lemon and introducing simple syrup (a common practice at the time), approaching it almost like an equal-parts drink. He continued to work on it when he spent eight years working at Cure in New Orleans, where it appeared on the “Cocktails We Love” section of the menu. There, he used El Dorado 3 for the rum and Pierre Ferrand for the Cognac.

Over the years, his tastes have shifted, and so has the nature of bar programs. At Lonnie’s, Gannon relies on a much smaller backbar, so he prioritizes versatile ingredients that can work across the classics and original drinks.

A beginner bartender’s dream, the Refajo is so simple to assemble that it almost feels too basic to be called a cocktail at all. An ice-cold mixture of light beer and soda, the Refajo is a summertime staple that is far from unique to Colombia. But over the past few decades, the shandy has become so ubiquitous in the drinking culture across the South American country that it has shifted from an object to a verb, à la Google.

“Refajo has been popular in Colombia for at least the past 30 or 40 years,” says Luis R. Vidal, an anthropologist at the Colegio Mayor de Antioquia in Medellín who studies the intersection of food, drinks and culture. It is a clever hangover cure, an ingenious way to extend the beer supply, and a cooling accompaniment for a hot day, all at once. “But more than anything, Refajo is a social drink at its core, one that we associate with large gatherings, celebrations, and spending time together,” says Vidal.

The classic recipe is nothing more than equal parts light beer and Colombiana, an almost cloyingly sweet soda that smacks of citrus and bubblegum and is frequently compared to cream soda, for the North American palate, or Inca Kola, for those who know their way around the South American beverage scene. However, the Refajo isn’t without its regional variations; on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, for example, it is frequently made with a local favorite, Kola Román.

The simplicity of the Refajo gives it legs, and with them the at-home bartender runs. Riffs can involve adding a splash of orange juice, slices of fruit for garnish, a dash of aguardiente for a true kick, or adjusting the beer-to-soda ratio to balance for sweetness.

According to Dale DeGroff, godfather of the modern cocktail revival, the French Martini was “one of the sparks that got the cocktail-as-Martini craze started.” A fruit-forward combination of vodka, pineapple juice and Chambord, the French Martini dates back to 1996 when DeGroff himself debuted the drink at restaurateur Keith McNally’s Pravda, in New York City. It wasn’t until the following year, however, when it hit the menu at McNally’s buzzy Balthazar, that the drink really took off. Though it may be less viral than its siblings, the French Martini, too, is making a comeback.

Guadalajara Punch is a regional favorite in Jalisco, Mexico. The large format drink combines various citrus fruits with soda, tequila and salt. It’s served in a clay vessel and is sometimes called the Cazuela Voladora, or “flying casserole”; its easy-drinking nature can “send you flying.” (See also: Cantarito, another tequila classic served in earthenware.)

Many of the bottles had exploded; others were covered in the melted wax from their caps. Some laid entirely empty, their corks making a break for it in the heat of the flames. The fire remediation team wiped down every remaining bottle and placed them back on their shelves, allowing Bayless-Hall and the rest of the Rolo’s team to investigate the extent of the damage. Quickly, it became clear that none of the wine from their basement storage was salvageable. “We knew right away that we weren’t going to be able to sell these bottles of wine,” Bayless-Hall explains. Upon examination, some of the collection was fine, “but a few of the bottles were really gross, and had clearly been maderized, or cooked.” Rolo’s made the devastating decision to ditch their entire list, rather than risk a bad pour: “If every single bottle is going to be a dice roll, we have to just take it all as an L.” 

It was a tough call for Bayless-Hall in particular. Since he took over as beverage director two years ago, he has doubled the wine list at Rolo’s, focusing on adding American wines, especially from the East Coast, to the menu, as well as diversifying the offerings within broad categories like Riesling and Burgundy. “I had a real attachment to some of this stuff,” he says.

But in a lucky twist of fate, Bayless-Hall’s rapacious hunt for new bottles provided a life raft for Rolo’s after the fire. The collection had become so vast that they acquired an offsite storage location at the beginning of the year. It wasn’t meant to be a contingency for emergencies: “I’d been buying some cooler, older stuff,” he explains. “They were well above the standard price point for what we had been offering. We were slowly figuring out ways to put some of that stuff onto the menu, but a lot of it was waiting in the wings.” After the fire, the Rolo’s team decided to open up their offsite collection as a way to keep serving great wine while they rebuild what they lost. 

By the following weekend, Rolo’s was ready to start offering these pours, with the aim of keeping the price relatively stable from their old list, despite the higher costs of the bottles. “Every wine director will always brag about how good their prices are,” Bayless-Hall says. “But now that we got forced into this position, it’s important to us that people keep thinking about Rolo’s as a place to drink wine that is well-priced and accessible. That means that, for the time being, our markups are the lowest they’ve ever been.” He estimates that the current markup is, on average, a third or even half the restaurant’s typical pricing. For more premium bottles, he adds, they’re selling them almost at cost: “I just want us to break even.” 

So far, he says, the backup plan seems to be a success. Whether it’s because the staff is thinking more about wine than they would otherwise, or because the prices are better than they might have been before the fire, Bayless-Hall has noticed an uptick. “It’s only been a few days, but we’re selling more wine.” 

Since the fire, the team has been opening one special bottle a night, offering pours of rare wines like a 2002 Robert Ampeau & Fils Les Charmes Mersault (“super lactic and intense,” according to Bayless-Hall), a jeroboam of a 2025 Peter Lauer “Kupp No. 8” Riesling Kabinett (with “really tightly wound acidity” and “zesty citrus”) and a 2013 Thomas Perseval Le Village Blanc de Blanc (“low-intervention, zero sulphur added, and zero dosage with 7 years on the lees is a very ambitious undertaking”). Because of the relatively small collection, there’s not enough bottles of each to necessarily add them to their wine list, but these nightly pours allow patrons to sample their cellar while Rolo’s rebuilds.“Maybe it’ll be something we do indefinitely, or at least until we go through all these bottles,” says Bayless-Hall.

Whether it’s a Pierre Paillard Grand Cru Champagne or a Paolo Bea Italian red, Rolo’s loss is, at least temporarily, a wine lover’s gain. “I want people to be drinking wine that they’re excited about, and that I’m excited about, and that seems like something we’re going to be able to do in a way that’s kind of cool,” Bayless-Halls explains. “It’s for a shitty reason, but it’s ultimately exciting.” 

A certain apron caught my eye in the trailer for

I chatted with Pride about the ins and outs, costs, and challenges of having your space act as a film set.