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THE future, according to Epernay, will see us all eating and drinking bugs. So they're getting ahead of the game with their cocktails, which until this week featured an ant and cassis liquor. They were hoping to replace it with a scorpion-infused spirit, but they're still negotiating on price. Those critters don't come cheap. Still, it's a relief to know that even after the apocalypse we'll be able to get a good cocktail.

With notes of honey, almond and citrus, it's the perfect, long summer drink. One of these and a table on their sun-trap balcony and your life is complete

The new spring-summer cocktail menu at Epernay is bug-free for now, but it's got plenty of other surprises. We tried four of their new creations and found real originality and range, despite the list's relatively small size. It's comprised of 12 classics and 12 signature creations, and is deliberately concise to stop you drifting on a sea of drinks indecision. (The number of cocktails their bartenders can actually make is closer to 300 so if you want to go off-menu, you can.)

Bar Manager Lewis Cooke made us the first drink. Called You Damn Dirty Grape, it's a soft, sweet rum cocktail with Mount Gay Black Barrel, Pedro Ximenez sherry and orgeat syrup. With notes of honey, almond and citrus, it's the perfect, long summer drink. One of these and a table on their sun-trap balcony and your life is complete.

The name is a Planet of the Apes reference echoed in the retro monkey decoration hanging off the chilled glass. It's a frivolous touch showing that although Epernay take their cocktails very seriously, you don't have to be serious when you're drinking them. This is a fun, engaging menu with more than a touch of quirkiness to it.

Planet of the Apes

For example their next drink: The Saffronagette. It's Epernay's take on the classic Amaretto Sour, and like all their cocktails, it contains at least 50ml of premium spirits so you're never fobbed off with a glass of soda and a short measure. In this case, it's 35ml Saliza Amaretto and 15ml dry curaçao orange liqueur. Mix those with citric acid solution, lactic acid solution, and their house orange bitters, and you have a glass of gold-hued heaven.

The flavour is delicate and floral with hits of vanilla beneath the almond and orange. It's served in a martini glass with a bartender ballot paper attached. Silky, summery and sophisticated: it gets our vote.

The Saffronagette

Next up, a contrast: the Absinthe Colada. This is a potent, bitter twist on 1970s favourite, the pina colada. It was inspired by a drink created by mixologist Maxwell Britten at New York's Maison Premiere, and includes a 25ml shot of absinthe – a first for Manchester, if not the UK. Most absinthe cocktails are made with just a spray of the 'green fairy' not a full measure.

Don't let its strength put you off. Unlike some of the Eastern European absinthes that flooded the market in the 1990s, this is a premium version made by Pernod, so it's actually drinkable, and won't send you blind or crazy. Still, it's not one to knock back then order another. As well as the 68% vol absinthe, it features 15ml agricole rhum blanc and 5ml menthe liqueur, plus coconut, lime and pineapple. The prevailing flavour is the aniseedy absinthe. It's not an easy-drinker but it's not meant to be, for obvious reasons.

Absinthe Colada

Our final drink was the Bananaramo – a delicious reinterpretation of the negroni. Featuring butter-washed popcorn rum (the butter-washing gives it a fuller flavour and something called 'mouth feel'), plus banane liqueur and banana-infused amaro, it was a smooth, syrupy creation which balanced the sweetness of banana and popcorn with the bitterness of amaro. It's served over a giant ice cube made using reverse osmosis by an artisan ice-maker for extra purity and clarity.

If you think all this talk of processes and solutions is sounding a bit Blumenthal, you're right. Epernay takes the best parts of the molecular school of cocktail-making, describing its team as full-time bartenders, part-time chefs. But it doesn't go too far into the realm of the weird and wonderful. Most of these drinks are based on classic cocktails, just not the predictable classics you see everywhere.

Bananaramo

Epernay's skill is in intensifying the flavours with home-made ingredients, and using only the best, high-end spirits. And in taking the time to perfect their creations. The new menu has been in development since February with some drinks going through ten versions they got the recipe right.

The effort has paid off. These are cocktails made by connoisseurs of the craft: beautiful in taste and presentation. If the drinks we tried are anything to go by, it's a very strong list, and not just in alcohol content.

To enquire about cocktail masterclasses email epernay@theconfidentials.co.uk

Epernay, Great Northern Tower, 1A Watson Street, Manchester, M3 4EE.