The words "ready to drink" are printed on a 5% can of gin and tonic and on our 20% bottle of Bee's Knees. They don't mean the same thing. One is a long drink you open and pour. The other is a cocktail with the ice left out. Before we go further: we make and sell the second kind, so we're not a neutral guide. What we can do is show you how ours are made, why they're the strength they are, and what to do with a bottle. Then you can judge them properly against anyone else's.
The short version
- Our 20cl cocktails are batched by hand at The Stillhouse, diluted to bottling strength and bottled on site at 20% ABV (27% for the Negroni). Every bottle is two serves.
- They're bottled at bar strength, not can strength. You add the ice and the shake, which is where the chill and the last of the dilution come from.
- Shaken drinks go through a shaker with ice. The Negroni is stirred over ice. The Mojito and Old Tom Collins are shaken, then topped with soda.
- The citrus drinks use fresh juice, so once a bottle is open it lives in the fridge and wants drinking within a few weeks.
What "ready to drink" actually covers
Two different products share the label. Cans at 4% to 8% ABV are built to be drunk from the can, cold, with nothing added. Bottles at 15% to 27% are cocktails at the strength a bartender would pour before ice, and they only taste right once you've supplied the ice. The trade calls the first "ready to drink" and the second "ready to serve". Nobody outside the trade uses either term, so the ABV on the label is the honest guide. Under 10%, it's a long drink. At 15% and over, it's a cocktail. In between, read the method on the label.
We make both. Our canned Biggar Strength G&T is 250ml at 8%, and you drink it as it comes. The 20cl cocktail range is the other thing entirely, and this post is about that.
The category is not small any more. The Wine and Spirit Trade Association's Sip 2 report put UK off-trade sales of ready-to-drink products at £704 million. That's up 12% in volume and 17% in value on the year before (The Spirits Business, May 2026). Judging by any supermarket chiller, nearly all of that is cans. The bottled end is where we sit.
How we make ours at The Stillhouse
We batch each cocktail by hand in the distillery, dilute it to bottling strength with water, and bottle it on site. Nothing is pasteurised, and nothing is added to stretch the shelf life. The citrus drinks, anything with lemon or lime in it, are made with fresh juice, not cordial or citric acid. That one decision does more than anything else to decide how they taste and how long they keep.
The spirit changes with the drink. Most of the gin cocktails start with our original-recipe Biggar Gin. When a recipe calls for a softer, rounder gin, we use Biggar Old Tom; that's the Old Tom Collins and the French Martini. The Negroni gets Biggar Strength Gin at 57%, because Campari and Cocchi Vermouth di Torino are loud and a 40% gin gets talked over. We cover that in our Negroni post.
The reason we dilute in the tank rather than in your shaker is control. A bartender adds water by shaking or stirring with ice, and how much depends on the ice, the shake and the mood. We add a measured amount so that every bottle starts from the same place. Your shake then adds the last of it, plus the cold. If you're curious what a spirit is doing in a cocktail in the first place, we've explained what a cocktail spirit is.
Why 20% and not 5%
Two reasons, and we'd give you the same two if you asked at the distillery door. First, 20% is roughly where a shaken cocktail sits before it meets ice. Bottle it there, and the drink in your glass ends up where a bartender's would. Bottle it at 5%, and you have a different drink, not a weaker version of the same one. Second, at 20%, the cocktail keeps without preservatives. A fresh-juice drink at 5% would not.
The Negroni is 27% because all three ingredients are spirits, bitter or fortified wine, and there's no juice to dilute it. It's the one bottle in the range that would still be a Negroni if you drank it neat, though we'd rather you didn't.
Strength is part of the price, and duty is the part we can show you. UK duty is charged per litre of pure alcohol. From 1 February 2026, the rate for anything between 8.5% and 22% ABV is £30.62 per litre of alcohol (GOV.UK). A 100ml serve at 20% contains 20ml of pure alcohol, so it carries about 61p of duty. A 250ml can at 5% contains 12.5ml and, at that band's spirits rate of £26.61, carries about 33p. Our own 8% can carries about 53p. Then comes the gin. A 100ml serve at 20% holds the equivalent of a 50ml double of a 40% spirit, and in the gin drinks that spirit is ours, distilled here. That, more than the duty, is why two serves in a 20cl bottle are £12 (£14 for the Negroni) and a 250ml can is £4.50.
How to serve each one
Every bottle is 200ml, and two serves, so a serve is half the bottle, about 100ml, whichever drink it is. Follow the method on the label. Shaken drinks want a shaker and fresh ice. The Negroni wants a rocks glass and a stir. Tall drinks want a highball glass and soda on top. The most common way to get a poor result is to pour a warm bottle straight over ice and wait. You get a drink that's too strong at first and too watery by the end.
| Cocktail | ABV | Glass | Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Negroni | 27% | Rocks glass, big ice | Pour over ice, stir 15 to 20 seconds, orange peel |
| Bee's Knees | 20% | Coupe | Shake with ice, strain |
| White Lady | 20% | Coupe | Shake with ice, strain |
| Elderflower and Raspberry Gimlet | 20% | Coupe | Shake with ice, strain |
| Espresso Martini | 20% | Coupe or martini glass | Shake hard with ice, strain |
| French Martini | 20% | Coupe | Shake with ice, strain |
| Bramble | 20% | Rocks glass, crushed ice | Shake with ice, pour over crushed ice |
| Nettle Daiquiri | 20% | Coupe | Shake with ice, strain |
| Mojito | 20% | Highball | Shake with ice, top with soda |
| Old Tom Collins | 20% | Highball | Shake with ice, top with soda |
For the shaken drinks:
- Fill the shaker with ice.
- Pour in one serve, half the bottle, about 100ml.
- Shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
- Strain into a chilled glass.
The shake is doing two jobs: chilling and adding the last of the water, so a lazy shake gives you a warm, strong drink. If that sounds familiar from making cocktails from scratch, it's the same principle as the 3:2:1 rule: balance depends on dilution as much as on the recipe.
How long a bottle keeps
Unopened, keep it somewhere cool and out of the light. Opened, put it in the fridge and drink it within a few weeks. The fresh juice is the reason: citrus and fruit oxidise once air gets into the bottle, and the drink slowly loses its brightness. It's still fine to drink; it just tastes tired. The Negroni, with no juice, lasts longest. The citrus and fruit drinks fade first.
The practical rule is simple. Since a bottle is two serves, open it when there are two of you, or when you'll have the second one within a couple of weeks.
Ours, and how to judge anyone's
Whether it's our bottle or someone else's, five things on the label tell you most of what you need to know. A named spirit, not "spirit drink". An ABV of 15% or more if it claims to be a shaken or stirred cocktail. A stated serve size. A stated method. An ingredients list you'd recognise from a bar. If any of those are missing, the price should be lower.
Ours pass those five, and you're welcome to check. If you'd like to try a few, the build-your-own cocktail box takes four, five or six bottles of your choosing. If you'd rather make cocktails from scratch, we'd start you with five easy gin cocktails.
Bar strength in a bottle. You bring the ice.
Enjoy responsibly. Our spirits are for adults aged 18 and over.
