Gerry's Wines& Spirits

Michael Kyprianou built Gerry's in the mid-1980s — the name honours co-founder Gerry Cohen, Kyprianou having declined to put his own over the door — and the Old Compton Street shop grew into the trade's reference library of spirits: mezcals, obscure amari, island rums and the bottle a bartender swears exists, usually findable here in three sizes. Kyprianou has retired to the role of several-days-a-week visitor while Allen Daly, his one-time apprentice and the manager for some thirty years, runs the floor — a succession that happened by osmosis rather than announcement. Soho's bars raid it; civilians are welcome to do the same.