The Espresso Martini has become one of the most-ordered cocktail on menus across the UK — and for good reason. Done well, it’s silky, bittersweet, and mouthfilling. Done badly, it’s a sickly, flat one-note sugar bomb. The difference almost always comes down to the coffee liqueur.

We built our Manchester Coffee Liqueur specifically to fix that problem. Most coffee liqueurs on the market lean hard into sweetness to mask cheap coffee extract. We went the other way: balanced acidity, real coffee character, and enough backbone to hold its own against vodka and fresh espresso rather than disappearing under it.

Here’s how we make ours, and how to get the best result at home.

What you’ll need

• 50ml vodka
• 25ml Manchester Coffee Liqueur
• 25ml freshly pulled espresso
• A cocktail shaker
• Coffee beans, for garnish

A note on the espresso: use it fresh as fresh is best… But hot espresso melts your ice really fast, as well as making it very difficult to get a good seal on the tin while you shake. Often resulting in your espresso martini ending up on your clean white shirt. Maybe let the coffee cool, but up to you!

The method

1. Fill your shaker two-thirds full with ice.
2. Add the vodka, Manchester Coffee Liqueur, and espresso.
3. Shake hard for 15–20 seconds. This isn’t a gentle stir — you want a proper workout to build that signature foam on top. This makes so much difference to the finished drink – as aroma lives in the oils.
4. Double-strain into a chilled coupe or martini glass, so you’re only pouring the liquid and leaving the ice shards behind.
5. Garnish with three coffee beans, placed carefully on the foam.

Why balance matters here

Because an Espresso Martini has so few ingredients, every one of them is doing real work. A coffee liqueur that’s mostly sugar syrup with coffee flavouring added will flatten the drink — you’ll taste sweetness first and coffee a distant second. That’s the exact problem we set out to solve when we started making liqueurs in Central Manchester: treat sugar as one tool among several, not the whole recipe. Ours leans on authentic locally sourced high quality coffee and bitterness alongside the sweetness, so the coffee comes through clearly and the drink doesn’t cloy by the third sip.

A couple of variations worth trying

Espresso Martini, Manchester-style — swap the vodka for a small measure of Salford dark rum for a rounder, slightly spiced finish.

Affogato Martini — build the drink as above, then float a small scoop of vanilla ice cream on top instead of the coffee bean garnish. Dessert and cocktail in one glass.

Batch it for a party — multiply the vodka, liqueur, and espresso quantities and store in the fridge in a sealed bottle for up to 24 hours. Shake individual servings with ice just before serving so you’re not losing the foam.

Where to get it

Manchester Coffee Liqueur is handmade in small batches in Central Manchester, with full ingredient transparency on every label — something that isn’t legally required for alcoholic drinks in the UK, but we think it should be. Available as a full 700ml bottle or a 200ml mini, perfect for trying before you commit to the full size.

Shop the range at Mouse Kingdom Coffee Liqueur.

Our Dark Berries Liqueur — a blend of raspberry and blackcurrant — picked up an award at the Class Bartenders Brand Awards, and the Bramble is usually the first place people reach for it. Gin, lemon, a dash of Dark Berries drizzled over crushed ice: it’s a classic for a reason.

But limiting a liqueur this versatile to one cocktail is selling it short. Here are five other ways to put the bottle to work.

1. Dark Berries Spritz

Swap the Aperol in a spritz for Dark Berries. Build over ice with prosecco and a splash of soda, top with a few fresh raspberries or blackcurrants if you have them. The result is a deeper, more British take on the spritz format — less citrus-bright, more fresh Jammy Acidity. Works particularly well as the weather turns.

Ratio: 50ml Dark Berries Liqueur, 75ml prosecco, splash of soda water to taste.

2. An English French Martini

A classic French Martini uses the overly sweet Chambord Liqueur, invented by marketeers in the 1980s. We think Berries should be darker in 2020. This works so well because our Handmade Liqueur brings balanced acidity alongside rich Jammy berries. Alongside a good quality vodka, and shaken with pineapple juice, this twist will blow your mind.

Ratio: 40ml Vodka, 20ml Dark Berries Liqueur, 50ml good quality Pineapple Juice. Shake hard, strain into a coupe, Garnish with fresh Raspberries.

3. A Dark Berries Old Fashioned

An unconventional one, but a good bar trick. Use Dark Berries Liqueur in place of the sugar in an Old Fashioned, alongside your usual whisky and a dash of bitters. The berry note plays surprisingly well against oak and spice, and you lose the syrupy sweetness a standard sugar cube can bring.

Ratio: 50ml whisky, 10ml Dark Berries Liqueur, 2 dashes Citrus bitters, stirred over ice, orange twist to finish.

4. Berries & Tonic

The simplest option on this list, and one of the best for a warm afternoon. Pour over ice, top with tonic water, garnish with a few berries and a mint sprig. Low-effort, genuinely refreshing, and a good way to introduce the liqueur to someone who’s never tried it neat.

Ratio: 50ml Dark Berries Liqueur, top with tonic, garnish to taste.

5. Dark Berries Sour

A proper shaken sour: liqueur, citrus, egg white (or aquafaba for a vegan version), shaken hard twice — once without ice to build the foam, once with ice to chill it. The tartness of the berries plays against the richness of the egg white beautifully, and it looks the part with a few drops of bitters on the foam.

Ratio: 45ml Dark Berries Liqueur, 20ml lemon juice, 15ml egg white (or aquafaba), shaken and double-strained.

Why it works across so many styles

Dark Berries Liqueur was built to be flavour-forward rather than sugar-forward — a deliberate choice, and one of the reasons it picked up an award in the first place. Real raspberry and blackcurrant character with balanced acidity means it holds its own in spirit-forward drinks like an Old Fashioned, not just fruity, sweet builds like a spritz. That range is exactly what “balanced for cocktails” means to us: a liqueur bartenders can actually build a menu around, not just drizzle on top.

Get the bottle

Dark Berries Liqueur is handmade in Central Manchester, available as a full 700ml bottle or a 200ml mini for trying it first. Every label lists the full ingredients — something no UK alcohol producer is legally required to do, but something we think you’re entitled to know.

Shop it here : Mouse Kingdom Dark Berries.

Most limoncello is built for shots — served ice-cold from the freezer, syrupy enough to coat the glass, gone in one mouthful before the sweetness overwhelms you. That’s a fine tradition, but it’s a dead end if you want to build a cocktail with it. Pour a standard limoncello into a long drink and you end up with something cloying, one-dimensional, and short on the candied citrus brightness that made you want it in the first place.

Our Dry Limoncello was made to solve that. Higher ABV, lower sugar, and real balanced acidity, so it behaves like a proper cocktail ingredient instead of a dessert liqueur. Here’s the spritz that shows why that distinction matters.

The recipe

• 40ml Dry Limoncello
• 60ml prosecco
• 20ml soda water
• Ice
• Lemon wheel or twist, to garnish

Build in a wine glass over plenty of ice. Pour the limoncello first, top with prosecco, finish with a splash of soda to lengthen it. Stir once, gently, to combine. Garnish with a lemon wheel or twist and a sprig of mint if you have it to hand.

That’s the whole method. No shaking, no syrup, no extra sugar needed — which is exactly the point.

Why sugar is usually the problem

Traditional limoncello recipes date back to preserving lemon flavour in an era before refrigeration, and high sugar content was part of how that preservation worked. It’s a recipe built for the 1800s, carried forward largely unchanged. That’s fine if you’re drinking it as a 20ml digestivo after dinner. It’s a problem the moment you try to stretch it into a 100ml+ long drink, because the sugar-to-lemon ratio that works in a shot becomes overwhelming once you add prosecco and soda on top.

A dry limoncello flips that ratio. By pulling sugar back and letting acidity and bitterness do more of the work, the lemon character stays forward through the whole glass rather than fading behind sweetness by the second sip. It’s the same principle behind everything we make: sugar is a tool, not the whole recipe, and balancing it against acidity and bitterness is what makes a liqueur actually work in a mixed drink rather than just on its own.

A couple of variations

Limoncello & Tonic — swap the prosecco and soda for a good Italian tonic water. Simpler, lower-ABV, and a good option for daytime drinking.

French 75, Limoncello twist — replace the gin in a classic French 75 with Dry Limoncello, keep the lemon juice and prosecco. You’ll get a rounder, more citrus-forward take on the original without the drink turning sickly.

Limoncello Sour — 45ml Dry Limoncello, 20ml lemon juice, 10ml sugar syrup, shaken with egg white or aquafaba. The liqueur’s natural balanced nature means you need far less added syrup than a standard sour recipe calls for.

Why it’s worth the higher ABV

At 30% ABV, our Dry Limoncello sits meaningfully above the 20–24% you’ll typically find on supermarket shelves. That’s a deliberate choice: a limoncello built to be diluted into a cocktail needs enough strength to still register once it’s mixed with prosecco, soda, or tonic. A weaker, sweeter limoncello disappears in a long drink. This one doesn’t.

Get the bottle

Dry Limoncello is handmade in Central Manchester, with the full ingredient list on every label — not something UK alcohol producers are legally required to disclose, but something we think you’re owed.

Shop it here: Mouse Kingdom Dry Limoncello.