Boston’s First Non-Alcoholic Cocktail Bar Is Here

A spirit-free cocktail at Beyond Proof. / Courtesy photo

The smoked old fashioned at Beyond Proof, the new nonalcoholic bar in Jamaica Plain, pleasantly burns down the throat, just like a traditional old fashioned should, with orange bitters and orange peel for those sweet citrus notes. Owner Krista Kranyak is at the bar of the dawn-hued space that used to be her former restaurant, Ten Tables, adding a blend of hickory and walnut wood chips to a small smoker over the rocks glass for the drink’s finishing touch.

“I just take this over to the table and people love it,” she says, lighting the chips on fire with a handheld torch. Smoke curls down into the glass. “Why shouldn’t you be able to have a beautiful, sophisticated drink and feel like you’re drinking bourbon and getting the same kind of smoked effect, just without the alcohol?”

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Before opening on a busy Friday night—and there are already people walking by and peering inside—Kranyak is talking about the drink specifically, and also the concept of an entirely zero-proof bar. Why shouldn’t spirit-free cocktails boast the same care and craft as typical cocktails? Since opening in April, she’s been hearing from customers that the drinks are so delicious that they forget there’s no alcohol involved. “And I’m like, aren’t we supposed to be drinking for the taste and not the effect?” she says with a laugh.

Beyond Proof. / Courtesy photo

Even after the smoke twirls, the taste lingers in the drink, boosting the peppery kick of the Nkd bourbon. It’s one of Beyond Proof’s many frills that prove that skipping the alcohol isn’t punishment or penance; it’s more akin to self-care. Customers—whether sober, sober-curious, or just taking a zero-proof break before a nightcap elsewhere—are taking notice.

The concept has its detractors, of course. Online, some were quick to comment about how selling “$16 mixers” is not exactly a viable long-term concept—a dismissal that doesn’t give Kranyak the credit for her elixirs that include craft amari, house-made syrups, rose oil, and cacao grated tableside. (And for the record, cocktails go for $13). But the snug 40-seat, 800-square-foot spot has been hopping since opening, with only Kranyak and one bartender handling food and drink service, serving a menu of thirteen cocktails, a handful of N/A wines and beers, and a collection of broadly Mediterranean mezze and a few larger entrees.

Beyond Proof’s mezze. / Courtesy photo

It certainly helps that Kranyak has worked in the restaurant business for 30 years, much of that time centered around this very location. She worked here when it was chef Tim Partridge’s Perdix, and it’s within these walls where she first opened Ten Tables in 2002, serving farm-to-table cuisine before it was ubiquitous. She opened more restaurants, including now-closed Cambridge and Provincetown outposts of Ten Tables, while her family also grew. “My wife and I had two girls, and I had five restaurants when they were two,” she says. “And then my wife said, ‘Are you going to spend time with the kids, or is this going to be your life?’”

Kranyak started work as a broker at Corbett Restaurant Group and sold off her restaurants, scaling back to just the original Ten Tables in JP. But even there, she wasn’t present in the last few years, she admits, and customers noticed. Things changed. She’d changed, too. She decided to abstain from alcohol—three years of sobriety under her belt now—and started researching cocktails and zero-proof spirits, serving them for friends and family. They all said she should do something with the zero-proof concept, but she demurred. Instead, she doled out that same business tip to her clients: Boston could use a cool non-alcoholic bar. Customers here and around the country as a whole are drinking less. Eventually, she put the final Ten Tables up for sale, but when the sale fell through, she wondered just how she was going to fall in love with her restaurant again. Her wife encouraged her to take the next step: “Hey, that kickass zero-proof bar you keep pitching to others? Why don’t you just open it?”

Beyond Proof. / Courtesy photo

So Kranyak researched already successful N/A bars like No More Café in New York City’s East Village, Soft Bar in Brooklyn, and some spots on the West Coast. She closed Ten Tables this past New Year’s Eve, clipped on her tool belt, and got to work transforming the space into a European bistro inspired by a trip with her wife and kids to Paris, where they ate at La Maison Rose. Over about three months she completely transformed the space. (“There was blood, there were tears, there were concussions,” she says.) She built the bench that spans one wall featuring vivid, oversized blooms herself. Tufted seats and upholstered barstools match the dusky pink walls. Wood and gold accents—mirrors, the taps of the draft system that will soon dispense non-alcoholic beer—infuse the space with warmth.

The cocktail menu is a journey, starting with “awakenings,” drinks meant to open the palate with gentler flavors, and “florals,” where ingredients like juniper and rose oil add a botanic flair. The “groundings” section of the menu experiments with richer, heavier flavors; the drink called Settle, for instance, mixes kava with lime, strawberry, coconut foam, and balsamic salt. Not to be mistaken for the Spanish wine cava, kava is a drink made from a tropical shrub native to the South Pacific. Owing to its calming, non-intoxicating effects, the drink is still used within the traditional medicine and ceremonial practices of groups of Pacific peoples. On its own, kava tastes resin-y and thick on the tongue, like a mild mastiha without the anise kick; Kranyak says she has it in the evenings over ice.

Beyond Proof. / Courtesy photo

Finally, about half the drink menu is dedicated to “rewritten classics,” Kranyak’s spirit-free spin on favorite cocktails. There’s a dirty martini, for example, with N/A gin or vodka and olive brine. “That was a must for me because dirty martinis were my jam,” says Kranyak. There are two espresso martinis, too—one features Guinness 0—with chocolatey notes. She shaves cacao on the cocktails tableside when she has time, telling customers about how it’s sourced from a chocolatier who runs Hazel Mountain Chocolate in Ireland.

There’s a clarity that comes with sobriety, says Kranyak, and it translates to a self-assurance in what she’s offering at Beyond Proof. “I’m really comfortable and centered within myself in who I am now and what I do,” she says. “I’m confident in my mixology program.” The longtime restaurateur is feeling good about the culinary side of the business, too. “I’m a cook; I love food. I want to have really kickass Mediterranean food that’s really tasty.”

Beyond Proof’s roasted carrots with labneh, pistachio dukkah, and orange blossom honey. / Courtesy photo

Kranyak’s wife lived in Israel for a while, and they’ve traveled together to Greece, so Mediterranean cuisines influence how they eat at home and what’s on the menu at Beyond Proof. Diners might start with warm Lebanese bread with smoked eggplant, olive oil, and herbs before diving into various dips and small plates (crispy saffron tahdig bites, for example, or roasted grapes and whipped feta). Heartier dishes include a Persian lamb and apricot stew, Greek chicken and lemon soup, and Lebanese fasolia and tomato stew, each served by the bowl or larger shared pot. A handful of sweets, including a date and cardamom sticky cake, round out the meal.

A highlight of the food menu is the ritual tower, a tea tower stacked with the chef’s choice of mezze. The top plate is piled with house-made pickles and olives, with others bearing beef kofta, various hummuses, muhammara, and other delights, served with the warm Lebanese bread. “We don’t cut the bread,” says Kranyak. “We give it to [diners] whole and let them share it around the table. The theme of the menu is about community coming together with presence and intention, and sharing.”

Beyond Proof’s Still Ember cocktail: coconut, 0% mezcal, lime, date, and sea salt. / Courtesy photo

The sharing means the food, yes, but also stories. Serving customers herself feels like a homecoming for Kranyak, flashing back to her early days of Ten Tables when she and another server were the only ones working the dining room. While Kranyak is smoking bourbon tableside, she inevitably shares her stories—three years sober, more clear-headed and energetic than she was twenty years ago—and listens while others share theirs. Some tell her how safe they feel for the first time in a restaurant at night with no alcohol around. The concept is a trend, maybe, to some. To others, it’s a safe harbor. “And that to me feels like a real restaurant,” she says. “A real community space of breaking bread together.”

Open daily at 5 p.m. 597 Centre St., Jamaica Plain, Boston, beyondproofboston.com.

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