Kick off Dry February at Prague's first zero-proof pop-up bar

Dry February kicks off around the world today. A new pop-up bar wants to help the denizens of Prague ease into sobriety with a cocktail in hand — a non-alcoholic one that is. Launching on February 4 in Karlin, organizers B&T Agency say it’s the first event of its kind on the continent.

The eighth annual Dry February (Suchej únor) initiative challenges Czechs — and in its international incarnations, people around the world — to give up alcohol for the month. Proponents say a stint of sobriety is meant to help people lose weight, save money, and enjoy better sleep and sex.

In the Czech Republic, which has some of the highest rates of alcohol consumption per capita worldwide and where almost 1 million Czechs are at risk of alcohol abuse, topped only in alcohol consumption by Lithuania and Moldova, the stakes are particularly high.

Barmen from Hemingway Bar Prague will craft mocktail creations and many of the mixers and ingredients used can be purchased on the spot for the newly sober to try their hand at healthier home mixology.

The bar is open daily from 11:30-1:30 and 17:00-21:30 (Sunday til 14:00) from today until February 4-9.

Dry January is a public health campaign urging people to abstain from alcohol for the month of January, that originated in the UK. Dry February is celebrated in Canada and elsewhere around the world as well.

Last year in the Czech Republic, according to a Nielsen Admosphere survey, six percent of the adult population in the Czech Republic participated in Dry February. Another report found that 90 percent of participants successfully completed the month free of alcohol, with an additional percentage continuing their sobriety into March and April, leading to a roughly a 600 million-CZK dip in alcohol sales.