Three British cities are holding cocktail weeks at the same time this weekend. Edinburgh Cocktail Week and Newcastle Cocktail Week both finish on Sunday after ten days, Liverpool Cocktail Week opened on Friday and runs until 18 October, and keyword data from Ahrefs shows that people in the UK search for a cocktail week by name in at least 22 different towns and cities.
The Ahrefs figures, which give average monthly UK searches, still put London at the top with around 700 and Edinburgh close behind on 600. Below them, Aberdeen averages 250 searches a month, Belfast 200, and Newcastle and York 150 each, more than Manchester or Liverpool manage, with a long tail running from Stirling and Dundee to Reading and Brighton. In August, searches for Edinburgh Cocktail Week reached 1,058 against 564 for London, the third August in a row that the Scottish festival has out-searched the capital's.
Liverpool is on its fourth edition and its second of the year, following a May edition. More than 50 bars and restaurants have signed up, with Royal Albert Dock returning as event partner and 11 venues taking part on the dock itself. Standard wristbands cost between £9.95 and £14.95, are valid for all ten days, and unlock signature serves from £5. "Having more than 50 venues involved this year is a huge milestone," said founder Alice Christison in the dock's announcement, adding that the organisers want people "to use the week as an opportunity to discover new places, support local businesses and enjoy everything the city's hospitality scene has to offer."
Newcastle Cocktail Week is running its autumn edition across 55 or more venues, six months after a spring edition in March. Edinburgh Cocktail Week, now in its ninth year, has more than 120 bars, £6 signature serves and a Cocktail Village of 25 pop-up bars in Festival Square. When we previewed Edinburgh's programme last month we called it Britain's only major autumn festival. It is still the biggest by some distance, but on this weekend's evidence it is far from alone.
The wristband format goes back to the first London Cocktail Week in October 2010, which was built on brands supplying bars with stock so that anyone wearing a wristband could buy a cocktail at a set price. London became the template, and this year it is the one sitting out, having moved to the week beginning 15 March 2027, as we reported in our piece on the festival leaving October. With Liverpool and Newcastle both now running in spring and autumn, and London heading for March, the calendar is spreading across the year rather than piling into one month.
For the venues, the timing is not trivial. The NIQ on-premise tracker showed UK drinks sales down 2.0% year on year in the week to 19 September, with spirits down 16.5% in the week to 12 September, while beer and cider grew. There is a fair argument that a festival in every city risks teaching customers to wait for the offer. Organisers argue the opposite, that the wristband gets people through doors they would otherwise walk past, and nobody has yet published figures that settle it.
"We're a Greater Manchester business, so it's good to see the north and Scotland take this format and run with it," said David Baddeley, founder of Boozy. "Aberdeen out-searching Manchester surprised me, and it tells you the interest was never just a big-city thing. The best thing these weeks do is get people trying a drink they wouldn't normally order and then asking how it's made. That curiosity is what keeps a cocktail on a menu once the wristbands come off."
The Mojito is one classic still climbing, rising three places in Drinks International's 2026 list of bestselling classics, as covered in our cocktail report piece. The Boozy Dragonfruit Mojito is a fixed 200ml serve at 8.4% ABV, the method for our version is in the Dragonfruit Mojito recipe, and the original lime and mint build is in our classic Mojito recipe.
No two bars pour quite the same measure. The Cocktail ABV Calculator covers more than 100 recipes and shows the finished strength and UK units of each build, which makes it easier to keep track over an evening.
Boozy asks everyone to drink responsibly. The UK chief medical officers advise no more than 14 units a week, spread over three or more days, and guidance on units and pacing is available at drinkaware.co.uk.
