The trio behind the Class Bar Awards New Bar of the Year chart Bar Glue’s rapid ascent. Hamish Smith took notes.

---

So what’s the secret behind the Class Bar Awards New Bar of the Year and its meteoric 15-month rise? Well, sometimes it’s not that complicated. It seems that being likeable owners with a sense of hospitality and community takes you a lot of the way there. 

There’s that Maya Angelou quote: “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” That’s the essence of it here. Sure, the drinks are technique forward and super tasty, but those are qualities that fall flat when the vibe isn’t right. At Bar Glue, there’s a natural easiness to service, a willingness to engage and an everyone’s welcome feel.

What’s surprising about its owners is that they’re actually relative newcomers to the cocktail bar industry. They haven’t spent years cultivating their reputations in the city, growing a following and honing their drinks making. Quite the opposite. 

In fact, the first time you heard the name Nathan Price might have been when he won Patrón Perfectionists last year. He and Mike were working in the same space they are now, but when it was the wine bar Burnt Milk Hotel. This is quite mad: Patrón Perfectionists was the first cocktail competition Nathan had taken part in and the winning drinks he made were among his first cocktails. He decided to “jump into cocktails” to take part in the competition, which is a bit like jumping in a swimming pool for the first time and winning Olympic gold. Nathan was living in his very own episode of Faking It, which ended with him making it. Before long he’d own his award-winning cocktail bar.

Up until then, opening a bar had been a faint imprint of an idea in their minds. All three had been co-workers at The Shipping Forecast pub, and when the topic would later come up, it was nothing more than breezy rumination. “We first talked about opening a bar seven years ago when Mike and Hatt lived in Paris – we were playing a game of Frisbee underneath the Eiffel Tower, and it was one of those pipe dreams that was like: ‘wouldn’t it be fun one day if we open our bar’,” says Nathan.

Bar springboard

Mike had a little more experience when they joined forces at Burnt Milk Hotel, having worked bars in Paris, where he’d “got the bug for cocktails and hospitality”. At Burnt Milk, they started playing around with mixed drinks – experimenting with flavours, ingredients and pairings. “When Nate – as we jokingly put it – accidentally won Patrón’s globals, it put the firework up us,” says Mike. “We realised that with so many eyes on Nate, now was our chance, our springboard to open our own bar. It forced our hand.”

When the decision was made to open on their own, they sought to fast-forward their industry integration – travelling to bars around the north and learning from bartenders who were only too willing to share their secrets. 

They owe much to Present Company in Liverpool – which was long a night class for tips and insights for the would-be owners. “For modern cocktail techniques, Present Company was the place to go,” says Mike. “They helped us understand the cocktail scene and know what we were getting into. They were a huge part of everything we’ve done.” A passing of information and also the torch, in some ways – Present Company closed earlier this year.

But this open, welcoming and supportive spirit shown by its staff – who’ve all gone on to do great things – and the community more widely, shaped the bar Nathan, Hatt and Mike would build. When they got the green light to take on Chris Edwards’ Burnt Milk Hotel in late July 2024, they knew it would be called Bar Glue and it wouldn’t be long before they had a sign reading “stick together” placed behind the bar. The bar was open in five weeks.

From September on, it was Liverpool’s bartenders’ bar – and in turn they’ve become some of the city’s keenest ambassadors. “We want to shine a light on how incredible Liverpool can be to get more people to come to the city, because we’re really proud of it,” says Mike. “The stick together thing is not a tag – it’s all about community. We bought a rotovap because we were annoyed that Liverpool doesn’t have one. So any bartender doing R&D for a menu or who wants to just play with it, can come down.”

It goes beyond bartending. “It’s about how we build this city’s reputation up as an industry, not just as one bar,” says Nathan. “We want to make the north a hub. When you can go to Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, it increasingly feels like you’re part of something – one big hub.”

And part of this mission to build up the brand of Liverpool is telling the world about the city. The pair have been to shows like Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, Athens Bar Show and they’ve not been shy about bringing teams from some of the best bars around to Liverpool. The former world’s best bar Handshake Speakeasy from Mexico City and fellow 50 Best bar Sip & Guzzle are just two that have made appearances, energising the Liverpool scene. Industry figures now have a reason to come to Liverpool.

Global map

But how you do you cater for a national – even international – crowd while still engaging locally and being a community bar? It’s that question – among others – that the owners answer in their bar show seminar Playing on Hard Mode, where they talk about how you put a bar from Liverpool – not London – on the global map. 

“When you make a drink that the mum who’s off to an Olly Murs concert likes, and an international bartender who’s stumbled in also thinks is great, then you’ve nailed it,” says Mike. “Creating a whole menu of those drinks is super tough. Finding that balance of using techniques such as clarification and distillation but then still creating drinks that everyone thinks is delicious – that’s what gets us going.” Three drinks that sum that sentiment up are those pictured: the Happy Meal, Michael D’Berr and W.I.N.E, which is an update on Nathan’s Patron Perfectionist winner.

But we’ll finish where we started and that is to say Glue’s drinks are great, but they’re subordinate to the bar experience. And that, in no small way, is where Hatt comes in – the third member of the team, who works at the bar on weekends. “Hatt’s our secret weapon. Saturdays, when it’s super busy, it’s just a breeze because she’s here and she’s never fazed,” says Mike. It seems there are some transferable skills between front of house and the front of a classroom – Monday-Friday, Hatt is a teacher in a primary school. “The teaching comes in handy,” she says, modestly. Hatt is also the brains behind the décor, the branding, the colour schemes – as Nathan puts it, “everything you taste is me and Mike, everything you see is Hatt”.

If you’re wondering why none of the other members of the team have had a shout out, it’s because there aren’t any. Bar Glue is three people – one of whom is a moonlighting teacher. “When somebody comes in and says they love a drink, or love the bar, we know it’s come from us – it’s so rewarding,” says Mike. 

There’s something special about an owner-operated bar. The kind of place where you get chatting with the bartender who introduces you to everyone in the bar. An echo, you might say, of Anfield’s You’ll Never Walk Alone – Bar Glue is the kind of place you turn up to alone and leave with friends.