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It’s the driest watering hole in Brooklyn.
Mockingbird opened its doors as the only booze-free cocktail bar in the borough during Dry January – and its owners said they’re turning crowds away at the door over a month later.
“We had to turn people away on a drag bingo night, and on Valentine’s Day we were packed,” co-owner Coulton Vento told The Post of the Park Slope hot spot that bills itself as a “zero-proof cocktail bar.”
“Our soft opening was insane – we had a line out the door,” the 30-year old Brooklyn Heights resident added.
Co-owner and Prospect Park resident Evan Clark, 28, said programming is a huge draw for the bar — and he plans to kickstart the city’s first “sober trivia night” on Tuesdays
“So what we’re really trying to build is that adult-centric lounge/cocktail bar area … somewhere you can spend a few hours with friends and not have to order a meal,” he said.
The longtime pals — both software engineers by day — concocted their plan to open the booze-free libation station on Seventh Avenue after Vento quit drinking in January 2024. It was then when he realized a noticeable lack of upscale no-alcohol venues in the Big Apple, he said.
“I love going to cocktail bars, but when I gave up drinking, I wasn’t happy with the options,” Vento said. “We started experimenting in the kitchen, we got really into cocktail books and reading obscure Reddit threads.
“There’s not a lot of information out there, you really have to seek it out,” Vento added.
The result is a candlelit lounge with wall-to-wall booths, bar seating, grazing snack plates and drinks ranging from $6 beers to $13 to 15 cocktails.
Signature cocktails include the Fireside Toddy (Free Spirit Bourbon, lapsang souchong, kuromitsu, clove, anise and cinnamon), Doctor’s Orders (Antidote Deep Red aperitif, kemon, lime, raspberry, egg white, cream and club soda) and Ember’s Delight (Ritual Rum, Giffard Aperitif, pineapple, lime, demerara, cinnamon and oak chip smoke).
Mockingbird has one of the most extensive NA selections in the city with more than a dozen beers, wines and ciders, and features local vendors like Montauk, Momentum Brewing and Original Sin,” its owners said.
“If you’re going to a really nice cocktail bar, it’s experiential, it’s something you’re not going to forget,” Clark said of the seasonal menu, which he crafts with Vento. “It’s something that goes beyond the flavor of the drink.”
Clark said the bar’s crowd of regulars includes long-sober folks, local parents and booze-averse Gen Zers.
“We wanted to make that space for people in their mid-20s, early 30s, who are kind of in that transitional period of life, who are like, ‘I don’t go out drinking with my friends. I want to do something else,” Clark said.
“But it’s been a very broad range [of patrons],” he added, “and I think that’s great because people aren’t associating it with, ‘I have to be sober to be here.’”
The NA bar’s grand opening comes as several beloved Brooklyn taverns are shutting down or at risk of closing due to soaring costs and even fewer customers — but Vento argues that, while some bars are finding it harder to get patrons to spend on liquor, Mockingbird answers with a different call.
“There’s a lot of people out there who, after COVID for a majority of reasons, just had to seriously cut back on their drinking,” he said. “We’re seeing people come in who are trying to really reduce their consumption and change their relationship with alcohol.
“It’s the same [challenge] as traditional bars where you’re trying to get your name out there – dealing with sales and making revenue,” Vento added.
“But I think in this case, what sets us apart is we’re offering an option to people who otherwise don’t have an option.”