Blinker

Blinker opened on Spring Gardens, tucked into the Northspring building at the top of King Street a short walk from Hotel Gotham, and is the work of founder Dan Berger — formerly head of bars at Gordon Ramsay Restaurants and The Ned, and the man behind Iceberg Bar Consultancy. The name nods to a long-forgotten three-ingredient cocktail of rye, grapefruit and raspberry, and that same reverence for classics runs through the room: an upscale but unstuffy walk-in bar, deliberately tucked away so the weekend crowds pass it by, staffed by chatty bartenders who are unmistakably in it for the craft. The menu changes monthly and is built around four in-season flavours, with dedicated Martini and Old Fashioned sections, and the bar has earned a place on Britain's Top 50 Cocktail Bars list.

The low- and no-alcohol offering is small by design but genuinely built rather than bolted on. As Manchester's Finest put it, the team have come up with 'a short but perfectly-formed list of low ABV cocktails based around botanical spirits by Three Spirit' — the non-alcoholic Livener and Nightcap blends whose names promise mood-altering, liven-you-up or wind-you-down properties. That runs to a trio of fully alcohol-free cocktails made with Three Spirit Livener or Nightcap, from a raspberry-and-ginger-ale-style long drink to a lime, almond and maple sip, plus a No Nonsense that pairs Three Spirit Livener with cranberry, orange and lemon.

Beyond the Three Spirit builds, Blinker will also pour zero-proof and low-ABV versions of its bar-classic canon — the Martini, Margarita and Manhattan among them — so the sober or sober-curious drinker gets the same considered, seasonal treatment as everyone else rather than a token mocktail on request. It makes Blinker one of the stronger city-centre choices in Manchester for anyone after a properly made drink without the alcohol.