The Whiskey Jar

Good place for whiskeys (of course) and cocktails (majority made using whiskey)! The atmosphere is nice inside but as it is popular and quite small so it can be hard to find a seat during the weekend.
I heard that they organise gigs during the week which is something on my to-​do list!

Hidden gem in the Northern Quarter — especially for Tuesday’s open mic night. These start around 7:30pm every week and go till late. Best put: you go for the music rather than drinks.
Having said that, they do have amazing cocktails. Unfortunately I’m not the biggest fan of beer so can’t comment on that department.
It’s not a large bar but there are comfortable seats around and on Tuesday’s, make sure to go early as the place gets packed.
Overall, best bar with live music you’ll get in the Northern Quarter area.

This place was recommended by a friend and boy oh boy was I pleased we went. We arrived on a Sunday evening and were welcomed into a dimly lit bar. There were plenty of comfy couches, as well as tall tables and on one side there looked to be a place for where the dj normally plays.
There are many cocktail options and there’s even a note in the menu to say they’ll make you something to order if they aren’t too busy. We ordered straight off of the menu; a cookie jar and a spiked lemonade. The place wasn’t busy so we were able to see them being made and talk to the bar tenders who were very friendly.
If you’re really into learning more about whiskey then they even organise whiskey tasting events.
The playlist in this place was perfect if you grew up in the 90s pulp, blur and the smiths. I was truly in my element.

The open mic night here is fantastic.
The wait for cocktails can take a while sometimes but still wouldn’t put me off coming back.
Fantastic atmosphere and friendly staff.

This is my favourite bar in the whole of Manchester.
It’s relaxed but has a great choice of «whisky» cocktails and booze.
It’s best on a Thursday! Quieter and has all the locals NQ4 in it.
Love this place!

Headed to the Whiskey Jar for a quick drink on Saturday with some friends. The bar itself is cool and quirky with an owl in a cage (fake owl!) with an arrow pointing to the left of the bar saying no service. The music is always great and it’s quite a relaxed atmosphere. Drinks are reasonably priced and the cocktails are always tasty with a much more sophisticated feel than dusk till pawn for example. Would definitely recommend it!

OK so I’ve been in here a few times and had to walk out again but only because the bar was about 4 rows deep and I couldn’t wait around to be served.
This time however I was there earlier on on a Saturday night and even managed to get a seat in a booth. As the name suggests they specialise in whisky and have over 250 types of the stuff. So if you like whisky as much as I do this is your place– they have everything from Jack Daniels to whisky that costs £12 a shot.
The staff here know their stuff so feel free to ask them for a suggestion. We started off with a Jack Daniels honey whisky then decided to ask for something else based on a country. The bartender brought down a smoky one from India, a spicy one from Holland and a Spanish honey one– we went for the Dutch one and it went down pretty well.
Atmosphere inside is rather dark so you can’t see much– always busy on a weekend. There are a few tables around the place and a booth with leather seating. Would recommend coming here at a time when it’s not so packed so you can take a bit more time choosing your whisky.

They spell it with an ‘E’ but we will park it to the side and not revisit it, because like Willy Shakes once said ‘a Rose by any other name…’
I agree with what people say about the décor, the location, the music and how monotonous it all looks, especially in that part of town, that also houses cosmonaut, afflecks & brown (formerly Barcelona), dry bar, Matt & Phreds to name a few. I must also confess that I am a whisky fanatic and I love whiskies; tasting, drinking and reading about them.
What I like about TWJ is that they have circa 250 whiskies on their roster and it keeps changing. On top of that, they have staff who know a thing or two about their whisky. Given how much of a whisky lover I am, this is what I like about this place. For a case in point, here is my experience on Saturday.
Very often, when I am after a quiet, conversational whisky, my go to tipple has been the Lagavulin 16, with its peaty sweet magic. This is what I requested, but the guy behind the bar recommended the 12, saying it’s a bit more peaty and harsh, but a couple of drops of water should do the trick. I must admit the first sip of the spirit did send a heatwave up my throat that normally accompanies a cask strength spirit like the Aberlour A’bunadh. I added a few drops of water and it changed the complexion of the whisky by a significant amount. Yes, it still retained its peaty nose and sweet palate but the finish was a lot less harsh and more enjoyable.
If you love your whiskies and want to have a few wee drams hit the whisky jar. It comes thoroughly recommended!
Oh, and they also do some decent cocktails, the most preferred of them all being ‘the cookie jar’, which comes with an actual cookie.
As with everywhere else, I sincerely hope they continue to provide great whiskies and have knowledgable people behind the bars to offer alternative suggestions.

Well I love whisky and this place certainly have a decent selection, although nothing close to the choice offered by the Britons protection but the whisky jar do offer a younger vibe over and they have a rather excellent open mic night on Tuesdays. They also sell meantime brewery beer, which is awesome and I love that more bars in Manchester are selling this stuff.

After a lovely dinner at Superstore, we went for a few drinks at The Whisky Jar.
Situated next to El Capo on Tariff St in the NQ, this bar, and the ones that around it, have been established in an old mill, which gives the bar some great wooden and brick features. The main bar and seating area is small, but luckily it wasn’t too busy when I went here on Saturday and we managed to find a comfy sofa to relax on.
There is a basement area which seemed to be much busier and louder than where we were sat upstairs, so this bar seems to cater for everyone’s needs overall.
The drinks menu in here obviously concentrates on Whisky — which isn’t really my thing, but there were some yummy cocktails on the menu too.
I ordered a Cookie Jar — a light yet creamy cocktail served with a cookie! And right up my street.
They have live music on here sometimes and an open mic night every Tuesday from 7.30pm — so i may have to pop down for that!

Like it in here. Really nice vibe. Glad to see they put more bar staff on as queue is ten deep. Toilet gone from upstairs which is huge improvement. Seating is cool. Get to talk to new people. Drinks are great if you like whiskey. I recommend the old fashioned but after 3 you’ll need a wheelbarrow to get you home. Music was lacking on my last visit but I didn’t mind

Pretty chilled out, nice look and lots of whiskey.
I prefer going to whiskey jar in an afternoon or straight after work when it’s not that busy.
Once a few more people start arriving it’s not quite as good.
Some of the cocktails take so long to make you should have to preorder them! Or get another to have while you wait.
I think the bar staff even get bored making the drinks sometimes.
Average cost of about £8 for the cocktails as well so quite pricey

Really enjoyed my visit to Whiskey Jar last night. Like the laid back vibe and stripped back wooden look. Also managed to get a seat on one of the comfy sofas so that was an added bonus. The bar is quite small and it does get very busy on a Saturday night so we did have to wait a while to get served. However that didn’t spoil our evening. Would definitely go back to the Whiskey Jar.

I wanted to like this place. I really did …
It looked good, there bar was well stocked and people kept telling me to try this place.
However.
It a whisky bar — with staff that didn’t know anything about whisky. Don’t ask what they would recommend, they won’t help. They were however very friendly and good staff — they just needed some training.
And while I can’t blame the bar for this — the customers all rude and this really ruined the mood off the place.
I am hoping that this was just because it was a Friday night and over packed. I will give this a go again, here hoping!

I really liked this bar, the food was good the staff were lovely and it was very comfortable.
So I went on a Saturday afternoon with a fair number of people (11) and we had a good chilled out time. Obviously being a Whiskey bar the selection of Whiskeys was very good, as was the tea and beer. The stand out thing for me were the scotch eggs not something one normally would order but they blew me away especially the all day breakfast egg and the chicken tikka. To be fair the food here was very good, i would also recommend the cheese board, it is a bar not a restaurant but as bar food goes this is a good place to head too.
The staff are knowledgeable and were able to find a suitable birthday whiskey for my friend that seemed to go down well enough, and they put up with the noisy lot of us well. I was drinking mint tea, but this was good and felt like a good quality leaf tea. Was a little thrown by them having run out of ‘normal’ tea, something I have never experienced in an establishment ever.
I will definitely go here again.

Spent a chilled Sunday afternoon here with a good buddy catching up and lounging on one of the large leather sofas. We ordered beers (Innis and Gunn) that was brewed in bourbon infused casks and it did have a really good bourbony beery taste. At 6% i would advise you to go easy on this dear readers as it could get a bit messy if you over indulged :) if you like your whiskeys (after all the clue is in the name! ;) they have a good selection and also do a good selection of cocktails for those of you preferring your whiskey on the softer side rather than straight up!
I know some people aren’t so keen but i personally liked the stripped back décor and was particularly fascinated but the old whiskey decanters that they had used for light shades. The music was a mix up of all sorts of stuff (I’m sure there was some Prince in there!) but was suited to the Sunday afternoon/​evening that we spent there.
Would go back to give some of the cocktails a go and for another glass of Innis and Gunn.

Part of a small bar crawl around the Northern Quarter last night, I was really looking forward to trying The Whiskey Jar. Inside, it’s pretty dark and moody — as everyone else has mentioned, it’s just very NQ styled! The difference is, they specialise in something.
Not wanting to push myself into the completely wasted level of drinking, I went for a cocktail rather than straight whiskey; bourbon and fresh strawberries mashed together and served in a beautiful glass, it was very girly but very tasty. You could still taste the alcohol, but the strawberry took the edge of somewhat!
During the evening, we lost a set of keys, so I gave the Whiskey Jar a Tweet and a call this afternoon and they were very polite and very helpful, promising to keep an eye out and ask the evening staff.
Only 3 stars purely because we didn’t stay for very long and, after the music at Hula, I wasn’t too keen on the more electronic/​no lyric tunes here.

I don’t really know what to say about Whiskey Jar really — I mean I don’t love it, but then I don’t hate it. To me it’s just magnolia, just average really and I don’t think it’s their fault entirely, they’re just in the middle of the current trend for the stripped back look and paint my numbers bar concept going around the NQ at the moment.
I think it sums it up when we’d been in there for a couple of hours and when we said we might move onto Kosmonaut that one of our friends said «we are in Kosmonaut aren’t we???»
Same music, same drinks and same atmosphere as a ton of bars within 5 minutes walking distance.
Give us some new ideas and a bit of personality future NQ bar owners!

I might be getting tired of the 1990s NY-​Soho look (leave the brick walls as is — decoration done), but hey, it’s still effective. At least they turned some decanters into lampshades here.
They have Innis and Gunn bottles — a big plus. They do decent cocktails — especially the Whiskey sour, which although coming across sweet at first, soon mellows into a decent stab at this classic.
I’ll pop in here often I suspect, but like Kosmonaut nearby, I can’t quite see myself spending all night here. It feels much more like «quick stop-​off» than «settle in» to me.

Opened recently on the less frequented side of Northern Quarter, Tariff Street (The other end of Hilton Street) and thank god for that because this area desperately needed some good pubs!
This side of NQ was mainly dominated by Lammars, Lolas and Port Street Beer house but now all these have competitions from the newbies like Kosmonaught, The Whiskey Jar and Takk! This is a true Northern Quarter bar and you know it the minute you walk in because of the whole feel of the place! The lights are dim, the couches are vintage, wooden flooring and some nice blues music playing in the background! There are live bands here too playing some funky rock and roll and pop in a jazz and blues style (loved it).
The food was surprisingly good, I had a chicken and herbs pie (6 pounds) and it was definitely much more than something that filled my stomach! They have a good selection of beers and ofcourse Whiskey (come on, look at the name).
Verdict: Good place and a nice addition to the NQ bar scene!