Editor Hamish Smith introduces the latest magazine. Access the digital magazine here. Not subscribed? Bartenders can sign up for a digital or hard copy here.

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Yet even through the murk and mizzle, it's not grim up north. Manchester continues to be a bright spot, with quality bars – and an appetite for them – flourishing in what appears to be its own microclimate.

John Ennis and Nick Thomas front our spring edition, but it could have been any of our magazines over the past decade. Graffiti Spirits Group has been behind so many hit venues in Liverpool and, more recently, up the Mersey. We hear all about the pair's new Manchester bar with Adam Taylor – MDNT – in this issue.

It’s a short walk from here to Speak in Code's subterranean sister, Double Down, where you’ll find Tyler Zielinski in conversation with Nathan Larkin – we feature the drink they think will bang the loudest. And that's not it from Cottonopolis – we have no less than three new bar reviews too.

But as Samuel Johnson would agree, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, and our capital – despite mounting cost pressures – continues to find ways to reinvent itself. This magazine covers The Newman Hotel's Gambit, The Devil You Know and what might be the big one of the year: Cato.

The drinks at Cato are about as British as drizzle – and so is this edition of CLASS, with Anistatia Miller & Jared Brown revelling in the UK's spring bounty and Clinton Cawood's Classics now taking in the best of bars' seasonal spins. Locale, and how it informs identity, is also on the mind of guest writer Dereece Gardner.

With more columns from Kate Nicholls, Edmund Weil, Kevin Armstrong, Elliot Ball, Lucy Britner and Merly Kammerling on the health of the industry, ourselves and our careers, and wetter pieces from Stu Bale, Millie Milliken and Oli Dodd, there's plenty more in this Spring issue to pique your interest as the sun gingerly peeks out from between the clouds.