The Top 44 Places to Drink Near Aloha
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Every cocktail on the menu comes in two versions, light or dark, so you're choosing a mood as much as a drink. Slowpour is a cocktail bar tucked into the basement of Ropes and Twines on Bold Street, built around the idea that nobody should be rushed, least of all you. The drinks are considered and the pacing is deliberate, which in a city that usually wants to get on with it, counts as a quiet act of defiance. It landed on the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list in its first year open.
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Rank 2. Sister Ray
Cocktail Bar
Wolstenholme Square's late-night cocktail bar takes its name from a Pavement album and its atmosphere from a record shop that actually has good taste. Scandinavian-lit interiors, a long counter where you can interrogate the bartenders, and a soundtrack curated by local DJs set the room. The menu runs fun and seasonal, and a kitchen pop-up covers food on weekends. Ranked 34th on the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list, and barely a year old.
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Rank 3. Bar Glue
Cocktail Bar
A small cocktail bar tucked into Anchor Courtyard that holds maybe 30 people inside and turns the intimacy into a feature. The bespoke menu runs to eleven drinks, with names like Mechanical Bull that suggest the team enjoys themselves. Regulars who can't decide are pointed off-menu without fuss. Bar Glue ranked second on the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list in 2026, which is a lot of swagger for a place that fits in a courtyard.
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Rank 4. Mojo Liverpool
Cocktail Bar
A cocktail bar inside a converted stables that once served the Lord Mayor, Mojo has the bones of a grand civic past and the playlist of someone who peaked during the Metallica years. The drinks list runs from Woo Woos to Corpse Revivers without apology, and a beer is equally welcome. The crowd spans suits and students, which is either reassuring or a warning, depending on how you feel about Metallica.
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Rank 5. Aloha
Tiki Cocktail Bar
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The 1970s kitsch is not ironic here; it's just how the place looks, and has for decades. Cafe Tabac on Bold Street starts the day as a cafe and quietly becomes a bar by night, serving beer, wine, and a short list of cocktails to a crowd that isn't there to be impressed. No long menus, no elaborate pours, no one performing behind the bar. DJ nights and film nights fill the calendar when the mood calls for it.
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Parked halfway between Liverpool's two cathedrals, The Magnet is a late-night bar that's been around long enough to mean something to the city's music scene. The stag-and-hen circuit doesn't reach this far up Hardman Street, which is either a mild inconvenience or the whole point, depending on who you ask. Tokyo Industries owns it now, post-refit, but the bones of the place carry fifty years of noise.
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Every dog gets a colored cone on arrival, a quiet signal to the room about whether they're up for socializing or need a little space. Old Duke is a pub on the Southport outskirts that takes its canine clientele as seriously as the humans, with borrowed beds, blankets, treats, and a dedicated dog menu. It won the Great British Pub Awards Best Pub for Dogs in 2025, which tracks completely once you're inside.
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A country gastropub east of the River Dee that the village literally helped rebuild, lending tools and labour when Gary Usher's team took over a shuttered local. The seasonal menu runs to comforting bistro dishes, and the guest chef series has pulled in names like Tom Kerridge and Angela Hartnett, which is not nothing for a pub in a Cheshire hamlet. It landed on the Top 50 Gastropubs list, and walkers and cyclists seem to find it without much trouble.
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Rank 17. SCHOFIELD'S BAR
Cocktail Bar
Schofield's sits on the corner of Sunlight House, a 1930s art deco landmark in Manchester, and the brothers who run it have stocked the shelves with books paired to specific cocktails, so you can order a Vesper Martini and read Casino Royale like it's perfectly normal. It's a walk-in cocktail bar most nights, classics-forward, and it placed sixth on the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list. Drinks run around twelve pounds.
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Rank 18. Speak in Code
Cocktail Bar
A Victorian archway over a plain black door on Jackson's Row opens into a cocktail bar that feels like it borrowed its bones from an industrial New York loft, bare brick, dark wood, and velvet all somehow coexisting. The plant-based menu is a genuine commitment rather than a footnote, and the drinks lean inventive without being smug about it. It ranked fourteenth on the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list for 2026.
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The bar takes its name from a pre-Prohibition rye, grapefruit, and raspberry cocktail most people have never heard of, which tells you something about the intentions here. This is a serious cocktail bar on Spring Gardens, walk-in only, with a monthly-changing menu built around four seasonal British flavours. A dedicated Martini and Old Fashioned section keeps the classics honest, and snacks, including cacio e pepe toasties, arrive at the table. It landed at number 23 on the Top 50 Cocktail Bars list.
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Rank 20. The Morris
Cocktail Bar
Follow the neon sign up the stairs and you land in a cocktail bar that categorizes its drinks as funky, fizzy, shaken, stirred, sub zero, and sensible. The Northern Quarter energy is baked into the concept: retro-spirited classics alongside playful originals, all in a low-lit room with an 80s soundtrack. Bar snacks run from snacking cheese to Pepperami, which keeps the nostalgia theme going. It ranks among the Top 50 Cocktail Bars in the UK.
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Rank 21. The Edinburgh Castle
British Pub
A Victorian pub in Ancoats that Jay Rayner once called "a great place to eat," with chips cooked in dripping and sourdough dragged through the pan drippings. The kitchen has since changed hands, so what lands on the table now is a question mark, but the room itself, a handsomely restored city boozer with an upstairs restaurant, remains. Craft beer, cask ale, and whisky hold the fort while you find out.
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A cocktail lounge that planted itself deliberately in the suburbs and dared the city to come to it. Proof sits on a Chorlton corner that most bartenders would have walked past, and that's part of the point. The room leans upscale without the centre-of-Manchester attitude, which makes it a reliable neighbourhood find for anyone who'd rather skip the queue and actually get a drink.
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Rank 23. Liar's Club
Tiki Cocktail Bar
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Rank 24. Mojo Manchester
Cocktail Bar
Black-and-white prints of rock legends cover the walls, the music is loud and non-negotiable, and the shots keep coming. Mojo is a rock-and-roll bar with no pretensions and no apologies, the kind of place that gets rowdy early and stays that way. The crowd is genuinely mixed in the best dive-bar tradition, all packed in under the noise. The holy Mojito is apparently on the menu for theological reasons.
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Rank 25. Epernay
Champagne Wine Bar
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Rank 26. Peggy's Bar
Cocktail Bar
A converted textile warehouse on a quiet lane off Chapel Street, Peggy's is a dimly lit cocktail bar named after a local landlady legendary for her parties. It sits a solid walk from the busier Manchester bar strips, which keeps the crowd self-selecting and the atmosphere easy. The bones of the old building do a lot of the work, and the drinks keep pace with them.
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Rank 27. The Grill On The Alley
Steakhouse
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Two portholes cut into the floor let you look straight down 23 stories, which is either a brilliant design choice or a cry for help. This hotel bar sits at the top of Manchester's most conspicuous skyscraper, and the double-height room earns its name with panoramic views that take in red-brick warehouses, canals, and, yes, the Coronation Street set. Come for a drink and a look around; the city does most of the work.
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The bar has its own street entrance and lift, so you can bypass the handbags and frocks entirely, even when the store itself is closed. It sits alongside Harvey Nichols' food and wine floor, all white slatted ceiling, neon light, and a sharp hit of claret red against stainless steel. It's a cocktail bar that rewards a clear head more than it forgives a fuzzy one, which is either a warning or a recommendation depending on where you're starting from.
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Rank 32. Tariff and Dale
Modern British
A corner bar named for the two streets it splits, Tariff and Dale has a long two-tone counter and booth seating running the length of the room. The cocktail list is the thing to study: classics are grouped in threes, each trio running from the original recipe to a mainstream riff to the bar's own version, which is a quietly clever way to show your working. Downstairs there's food if you need it.
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Every surface in this Northern Quarter bar is painted: murals and polka dots on the walls, stripes on the floor, flowers on the bar. When the rest of Manchester's drinking scene is busy doing moody prohibition chic, Walrus arrives in a Hawaiian shirt. The art out front sets the tone, a red-headed figure clutching a fish with the quiet confidence of someone who has already won the argument about interior design.
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Rank 35. Hula
Tiki Cocktail Bar
A basement tiki bar in the Northern Quarter where palm fronds, fish tanks, leopard print, and sand somehow coexist without anyone feeling the need to explain it. The menu leans on classics but throws in sharing drinks, including three-litre Powder Kegs of house secret potion that suggest you came with friends and plan to stay. DJs run things deep into the night, which the decor, frankly, demands.
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Rank 40. The Three Fishes
Contemporary British Pub
A one-acre kitchen garden, a polytunnel, and an edible orchard sit behind this old Lancashire pub in the Ribble Valley, and most of what lands on the table came from within a short walk of it. The chef behind Northcote runs a seasonal menu that swings between classic and contemporary British, with a Friday chippy tea that draws regulars as loyally as anything on the carte. It's a proper pub that takes the farm-to-fork idea about as seriously as it can.
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Rank 41. The White Hart
British
Stone walls, timber beams, and open fires make The White Hart feel like it was carved out of the moorland it sits against. It runs as a proper gastropub, comfortable enough for a pint at the bar and serious enough to warrant the drive out from Manchester. The kitchen trained at Midsummer House and it shows, seasonal cooking that moves between pub classics and refined plates without making a fuss about the gap.
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Rank 42. The Rum Fox
British Pub
Treacle-glazed pig's cheeks and a Lancashire cheese soufflé anchor the menu at this smartly refurbished gastropub in a small Ribble Valley village, ranked in the UK's Top 50 Gastropubs. The cosy bar handles a quiet pint just fine, while the bright orangery dining room is where the kitchen gets serious: full-flavoured, unfussy cooking built on well-sourced produce. The Den fits ten for a more private meal, and Sunday lunch runs to curried goat pie for anyone bored of the usual.
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Rank 43. The White Swan
Modern British Pub
From the outside it reads as a classic Lancashire village pub, and inside it still delivers a proper pint and a genuinely jolly atmosphere. The Michelin-starred White Swan at Fence runs a set menu that lets the kitchen focus on refined, classical cooking built from local and seasonal produce, the kind of food that has no business being this good in a room this relaxed. Regulars and pilgrims from further afield share the same unhurried tables.
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Rank 44. The Pack Horse
Modern British
A stone gastropub on Market Street in Hayfield that walkers stumble into after the hills and rarely leave in a hurry. The kitchen runs on hyper-local sourcing, with lamb from a supplier four miles away and fish off the north-west coast, all shifting with the seasons. Open fires, warm service, real ales, and a quiz night keep it firmly a village local rather than a destination that's forgotten what a local is.