Sober travels: Non-alc in Japan (in 2024)

I recently made a lifelong dream come true and spent two weeks in Japan. I have always had a fascination for Japanese food, movies, and culture, and visiting the country was top of my bucket list. I had initially planned to visit in 2020, but we all know what happened (or, didn’t happen) that year. So, when I made my new year’s resolutions for 2024, I decided to finally make a move and book a trip to Japan.

While I was obviously excited to finally visit, I was also the tiniest bit bummed. Why? Well, Japan is known to have a big bar culture, both for casual drinking at bars and izakayas, and at craft cocktail bars. I was dying to be part of that, drink beer and eat bar food at izakayas, and explore the meticulous cocktail scene. Besides, I was traveling solo, and bars are usually a great place to socialize and have conversations with locals or fellow travelers. But since I stopped drinking over 18 months ago, I felt like I would be missing out on what tends to be a big part of traveling. Don’t get me wrong - I didn’t care for the alcohol. I just wanted the experience of exploring bars and beverages in a new country.

When traveling in the US or back home in Germany I know that non-alcoholic drinks (and specifically beer) are pretty much a given on bar menus, but I had no idea what to expect in Japan. As a solo woman and foreigner, walking into a bar and asking for a non-alcoholic drink just felt really awkward.

Well, it turned out that Japan actually does really well when it comes to non-alcoholic drinks! Not only did I find adult non-alcoholic beverages at many places, I also visited several dedicated low- and non-alcohol bars! In this post, I’ll recap the bars I visited in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, and the non-alcoholic options I found during my visit in April 2024. This post is by no means comprehensive (there’s only so many bars I can visit while walking 20,000 steps a day ;), but I hope it gives you an idea of what to expect when visiting!

Tokyo

Low-Non-Bar is a beautiful little cocktail bar in the Akihabara neighborhood of Tokyo dedicated to, well, low- and non-alcohol cocktails. They work with non-alcoholic spirits that are heavy on the botanical and bitter notes. I absolutely loved the cocktails I had, including a negroni variant using coffee for body and bitterness, and a beautiful gin&tonic made with non-alcoholic gin from a distillery in Osaka (more about that later!)

Sumadori Bar in Shibuya is in fact multiple bars: A standing bar and bottle shop on the ground floor that has a full drinks menu as well as a “sample glass” program, a casual bar on the 2nd floor, and a nicer cocktail bar on the 5th Floor. I had a draft beer at the bar on the ground floor and two cocktails at The 5th. I tried a seasonal sakura drop cocktail and a berry martini style drink. Sadly, both of the drinks were very subtle and didn’t deliver the punchy flavors I look for with non-alcoholic cocktails.

Memento Mori in Shimbashi is a beautiful cocktail bar hidden away on the 3rd floor of an office building - it took me a while to find it tucked away around the corner from the main food court on the floor. The bar focuses on drinks made with all parts of the cocoa bean. They offer a non-alc flight of 3, 4, or 5 drinks, which I was very excited about. While almost all the alcoholic drinks on the menu include the cocoa theme, only one of the non-alcoholic cocktails actually uses cocoa as an ingredient. I was a little disappointed to see the NA menu fall flat there. The drinks were good and the presentation was beautiful, but I would have loved to see more cocoa ingredients!

The tasting menu at JULIA restaurant was a huge treat. I absolutely loved the food and enjoyed the non-alcoholic beverage pairing which used traditional ingredients such as a salted plum drink. The standout drink of the night was a non-alcoholic sake that the owner had made in-house by boiling sake down with sugar to create a (non-alcoholic) sake syrup. Definitely something I want to try at home!

Tokyo Confidential and SG Club are two other cocktail bars that came highly recommended for non-alcoholic drinks that I didn’t get a chance to visit!

Kyoto

Bar Ixey is a tiny speakeasy-ish bar on the 3rd floor of a building in Tokyo’s lovely Gion neighborhood. Their non-alcoholic drinks use their own distilled botanicals with punchy flavors such as cedar wood and lavender, which I really enjoyed!

Bar Alchemist is a speakeasy hidden behind a wall of liquor bottles on Pontocho Alley, a narrow street that’s packed with bars and restaurants. Their fairly standard mocktail menu consists of versions of the alcoholic cocktails on the menu sans the liquor, i.e. mostly juices and sodas. I had a fluorescent blue drink that was very sweet but had some surprisingly nice subtle floral notes - I didn’t expect to like it, but it was actually a fun drink!

Osaka

Bar Nayuta in the very very cool America-Mura neighborhood (a few blocks full of thrift shops that blast hip hop) is another tiny bar hidden away on the 5th floor of a corner building - I think we’re seeing a pattern here. They don’t have a menu or non-alcoholic spirits, but were able to make some surprisingly good non-alcoholic cocktails using ingredients such as basil syrup and fresh tomatoes.

Bar Agreable is a whiskey-centric bar in Shinsaibashi that, again, doesn’t have a menu. The bartender was extremely friendly and happy to get creative with non-alcoholic drinks, mixing up an excellent frothy espresso tonic and a frozen strawberry cocktail that was definitely closer to dessert but very delicious.

Other

I don’t have any specific recommendations for other bars, but it seemed like most places that serve food and drinks (such as izakayas) would also have non-alcoholic beer options. I also never got any weird looks when ordering a soda or just tea at izakayas or other restaurants, or just sticking with water.

One thing I’d also want to highlight is the variety of non-alcoholic drinks - specifically beer - in convenience stores. Apparently, Japan is the 2nd largest consumer of non-alcoholic beer in the world (after Germany, my people!), and basically every Japanese brewery has a non-alcoholic version of their flagship beer.

I tried lots of different non-alc beers including Asahi 0.0 (the blue can), Asahi Super Dry 0.0 (the silver can), Suntory All-Free, Kirin 0.0, Sapporo Premium Alcohol Free. The blue Asahi 0.0 was by far my favorite - after my first sip I literally said “this slaps!” out loud.

I hope this blog post gave you an idea of what to expect when traveling to Japan and trying to enjoy the bar scene and nightlife without booze!

And finally: Join our alcohol-free events in New York City! Whether you’re sober curious or just taking a night off from drinking, we welcome everyone who wants to socialize without alcohol. See our event listings for details!