The business founded by Jefferson Boss and Barry Starmore runs a pair of gems in a thriving independent drinks retail scene in Sheffield. Spirits are a strong suit at Starmore Boss, with 400-plus high-quality products open for shoppers to have the opportunity to try before they buy. Team members visit trade fairs and vineyards to find wines that offer difference from the competition, but with great value and accessibility. A big commitment to staff training means service is of the highest standard, helping to create a retail space that reflects the drinks passions of the owners.

Spirits play equal billing to wine at the Hedonism drinks emporium in central London, where the highest-end luxury editions rub shoulders with the very best everyday premium brands. Events include showcase tastings for Islay whisky, agave spirits and sake, while the product range includes a multitude of exclusives and limited bottlings, chosen by the buying team from an array of barrel samples from some of the world’s coolest distillers. Customers can make their spirits purchases that extra bit special by taking advantage of Hedonism’s bespoke engraving package. Experienced, knowledgeable retail staff ensure the highest standards of customer service.

There’s always plenty going on at The Whisky Exchange, which operates three stores in central London and has a highly regarded ecommerce business. Brief highlights of the past year include: a We Are Whisky campaign, focusing on the stories of team members’ own whisky journeys; a Seasons Collection of whisky bottlings with taste profiles to reflect the changing moods of the year; and a sell-out first edition of single cask Havana Club rum. Events include a number of major consumer shows and a 24-hour online streamed whisky tasting. The annual Whisky Exchange awards have been tweaked to include the first New Wave Whisky prize.

Stourbridge-based Nickolls & Perks has been in the wine game since the last knockings of the 18th century, but the family-owned fi rm has invested strongly in spirits to move forward in the modern drinks retailing world. Around 1,000 people attend its annual Midlands Whisky Festival, held over two days in Birmingham city centre. Back at base, it has created an attractive new tasting room in the past year to elevate its events programme and launched its own single cask whisky bottlings, embracing both venerable names and exciting distilleries from the New World, helping to drive high double-digit growth in the spirits category.

James and Clare Brown take an inventive approach to in-store tastings and events to attract a growing customer base to their hybrid wine store in Brixham, Devon. Mystery flights cover a variety of themes, giving customers educational stepping stones through the range’s styles and price tiers, incorporating a sense of fun as they try to work out what they’re drinking. Lunchtime tastings each month match wines with food, with The Wine Loft’s “doorstep paella” a favourite feature, along with tinned fish and wine pairing, an idea inspired by a big food trend in Spain and Portugal.

The independent store run by Sadie and Hannah Wilkins in the Dorset town of Sherborne has become one of the UK’s best loved wine shops. Customers are ensured a friendly welcome and great advice about the eclectic range of wines in the Vineyards portfolio – and many now enjoy the opportunity to have a glass of fizz or a Bloody Mary in its mezzanine tasting space, with the on-trade side of the business ramped up in the past year. At the heart of it all is the team’s drive to create a safe and inclusive space for locals to expand their appreciation of great wines in a relaxed and enjoyable environment.

Katy Kennedy has created a spirits-focused hybrid in the up-and-coming Southville district of Bristol, close to the city centre. The main focus of the business is whisky, but Spirited takes a broad brush approach to its specialist subject with high-quality ranges across gin, vodka, tequila, brandy and no-alcohol spirits. Those choosing to drink on site can enjoy cocktails, or curated flights to expand their spirit-drinking horizons, including Japanese whisky, single malts and Mexican spirits. Spirited is a fun, lively and exciting addition to the independent retail scene in one of the UK’s most happening cities.

A main road from the M6 into Carlisle city centre is the unlikely location of a beautifully luxurious drinks emporium specialising in whisky and Champagne. Stone floors and highspec fixtures give House of Malt a real feeling of something special. Ecommerce helps drive Champagne sales for the business, founded by local man Ben Turnbull in 2015. The sparkling wine range is a blend of big-name Champagnes and smaller producers, with a sprinkling of English fizzes, crémants and well-known wines from across the New World. Attentive service means House of Malt delivers on the promise made by its aesthetics.

The combined fizz categories take up a large portion of the ground-floor retail space at the two-storey Hedonism store, which has carved out a reputation as one of the best all-round alcohol retailers in the world. It has strong relationships with Grand Marques, seeks out great-value grower Champagnes, and has a sparkling range that embraces just about anywhere in either the Old or New World that produces it. The top-end Mayfair wine retailer’s annual Champagne Showcase tasting sells out within minutes and has been so successful that it’s added a separate event for English sparkling wine.

The sparkling wine portfolio in the three Birmingham wine shops owned by Phil Innes ploughs the same furrow as the rest of its wine range: an eclectic mix, full of interest and exploration, with plenty of options to satisfy a variety of budgets. The Champagne range is growing, fuelled by products from smaller growers, and Loki really excels in finding lesser-known gems, whether it’s the cream of English wine production, world-class fizz Corpinnat from Spain or the best value South Africa has to off er. There are fizz tastings at all sites, while investment in staff knowledge means great service in stores at all times.

The Oxford Wine Company places as much emphasis on consumer education as it does staff training, through the auspices of its Oxford Wine School. It runs 16 courses each year across Wine & Spirit Education Trust Levels 1, 2 and 3, all held at its dedicated Jericho Wine Rooms tasting space in the city. It also hosts the Oxford University Wine Club and holds more than 50 consumer events each year, attended by anything from 10 to 500 customers. The company sponsors all full-time retail staff to study WSET up to to Diploma level, including course fees and time off to attend classes.

Birmingham independent Loki Wine invests heavily in staff training and engagement to ensure the highest standards of service at its three stores in and around the city. The business has four qualified Wine & Spirit Education Trust trainers, with all staff being offered the chance to study up to Level 3 as standard. It also does regular team wine tastings at least once a fortnight to keep retail staff members up to speed on its ever-changing range. Trips to producers are shared around, further improving the knowledge base across the whole team. WSET courses are also run for Loki’s most wine-curious retail customers.

Berkshire-based A Hoppy Place gives a degree of focus in training and education not often seen in the independent beer shop sector. It has put two members of staff through the Beer & Cider Academy’s beer sommelier course, and another has taken the same organisation’s pommelier qualification, meaning that customers can access the same levels of expert guidance on cider as they can on beer. A Hoppy Place’s venues in Windsor and Maidenhead both operate as hybrids, so cellar training qualifications also feature in the teaching regime. An array of beer schools for consumers includes sessions on IPAs, sours, stouts and beer and food pairing.

Dave Hayward aims to satisfy the demands of an engaged and animated local craft beer community at the two hybrid A Hoppy Place shops in Windsor and Maidenhead. That means fun and engaging events, a strict embargo on beers that can be found in supermarkets and highly trained staff offering excellent standards of expertise and customer service. The team includes a pommelier, helping to elevate the role of cider within A Hoppy Place’s package. Events are a cornerstone of its interaction with customers and cover a broad range of beer styles, always with a food-pairing element.

David Timbrell-Hill took inspiration from a previous winner of the award, London’s Kill the Cat, when setting out on the creation of Beer Park in Llanelli, south Wales. The out-of-town site provides plenty of parking, and retail accounts for the lion’s share of the hybrid store’s business. Welsh beers are a major focus, with Beer Park claiming to stock more than any other venue on the planet, but the 600-strong line-up also offers plenty of excitement from the rest of the UK and overseas, with a broad spread of styles to satisfy every craft beer fan’s needs.

A pub courtyard in the centre of the affluent Somerset village of Wedmore is perhaps an unlikely location to find one of the UK’s best up-and-coming specialist beer shops, but it’s one owners Donna and Dean Elson sensed could fill a big gap in the local market. The Crafty Fingers range has a definite UK focus, with Donna and Dean preferring to deal direct with brewers to ensure they can access the most interesting and up-to-the-minute brews. The store has a mezzanine drinking-in area that also plays host to the Crafty Fingers events programme, including board game nights and can-share experiences.

Dafydd Pesic-Smith managed a distillery and visitor centre for Welsh whisky producer Penderyn before deciding to do his own thing. The result is Milby’s – a conflation of the given names of his children – a boutique, all-round drinks store, tucked away down one of the most photogenic streets in Chester city centre’s tourist district. Visitors dropping in on a food and drink tour that makes a scheduled stop at the store can take away bespoke miniature bottlings, created by splitting full-size bottles of top-end collectable spirits into accessibly priced serves. Milby’s also has its own brands of ale, rum and Welsh whisky.

Sarah Helliwell and Abi Bowles have combined their extensive experience in wine retailing and wholesaling with an in-depth knowledge of the local market to create an on/off specialist wine and cheese hybrid in the centre of Frome in Somerset. The pair deliberately chose a small site for The Stores, wanting to create an intimate and approachable space for locals to enjoy and learn about wine. The range is merchandised by style to encourage customer exploration and help them find new wines. Average bottle prices have smashed Sarah and Abi’s expectations, as the concept has hit home with Frome’s wine buffs.

One-time Cambridge Wine Merchants store manager Katy Kennedy was looking for a change of direction after a spell working with a well-known spirits supplier and decided to go it alone. Spotting a gap in the market for a specialist whisky shop in Bristol, she set about creating Spirited, an on/off hybrid of whisky bar, cocktail lounge and specialist spirits shop in the city’s Southville district. The events programme includes monthly whisky tastings for women, led by female brand ambassadors, providing women who love whisky with a welcoming space to get together, share a dram and talk about their favourite drink.

The business founded by Hal Wilson and Brett Turner more than 30 years ago has gone on to earn a reputation as one of the UK’s best specialist wine merchants. Operating from three sites across the city from which it takes its name, it offers customers a vast range from all corners of the wine world and the best in spirits, including own-labels and exclusives across Bordeaux wine, Champagne, port, Islay single malt and gin.

Ted Sandbach’s Oxford Wine Company has three stores in the city of its title and another at its HQ in the Oxfordshire countryside, with a separate arm of the business operating a collection of wine bars. The retail range includes classic wines alongside exciting finds from the outer limits, many sourced direct, with a great selection of premium spirits. The company invests heavily in staff training and runs a wine school for enthusiastic consumers.

Tanners has been selling fine wines and spirits since the mid- 19th century – and its reputation remains undimmed almost 200 years later, as it constantly reinvents itself to remain relevant to contemporary audiences. The chain comprises half a dozen stores, operating in a variety of retail formats, including the cavelike space of its Shrewsbury flagship and the chic Art Deco stylings of its Chester branch. Sustainability steps include roof-top solar panels and insect-friendly gardens.

Phil Innes has built a chain of three attractive and exciting hybrid wine and spirit stores across Birmingham, with the model tweaked to suit each very different location. The business invests heavily in staff training and events, ensuring that Loki customers develop a broad appreciation of the product portfolio. The range is constantly reviewed and updated with new finds to give it a cutting edge and the stores all have a high-spec design for a contemporary feel.

Rapport with consumers is a key plank in the approach to wine retailing at Penny Edwards’s St Albans independent. The team’s passion for wine is evident in customer interactions on the shop floor, aided by a bank of Wine Emotion machines and by-style merchandising that drives to the heart of shoppers’ taste preferences. More adventurous consumers can explore the small-production parcels featured in the Superstars section, while those needing a little more reassurance will find the wines bought most often by their fellow shoppers corralled under Favourites. A local delivery service has a strong reputation among the wine lovers of St Albans.

James Nicholson has been sourcing wines for trade customers and consumers in Northern Ireland for almost five decades but is still very much experiencing a growth spurt. The vast majority of its wines are sourced direct and are sold at its bright, modern retail space in Crossgar, County Down. An inventive calendar of events includes art exhibitions, candlemaking workshops and more conventional tastings with local food producers, to eradicate old-school wine merchant stuffiness and increase customer engagement. Improvements to mixed case displays have been made in the past year to include more stories about the featured wines.

Kate Goodman’s Reserve Wines chain comprises a traditional wine shop and a bar in Manchester, hybrid stores in food markets in Macclesfield and Altrincham and a concession in a Warrington garden centre. Whatever the location, it likes to use “surprise and delight” tactics to excite consumers, and puts community at the heart of its ethos. Quirky events include Style & Sip and Sip & Paint tastings and collaborations with local food businesses. Reserve has led the way in shaping the on-tap keg wine market in its region and in introducing consumers to the outer reaches of the wine universe such as Georgia, Macedonia and Greece.

Jeroboams has 10 stores across London in upmarket central locations such as Knightsbridge and Holland Park, and more well-heeled suburbs including Muswell Hill and Hampstead. The chain has recently embarked on a strategy to maximise the high-end opportunities afforded by its sites. Initiatives include a fi ne wine destination to entertain private clients at one of is Belgravia stores, the appointment of a fine wine co-ordinator, and Build Your Cellar events to engage potential new customers about en primeur and wine investments.

Hedonism is a treasure trove of glitzy products to satisfy both the demands of the wealthy client base in the Mayfair district it’s located in, and shoppers from further afield looking for great quality at relatively affordable prices. Its range includes many exclusives and limited-editions, historic vintages across some of the most prestigious names in wines and spirits, and an array of large formats appealing to collectors or those celebrating a special occasion. An experienced and knowledgeable retail team ensures great products are accompanied by great service.

Royal Warrant holder Berry Bros & Rudd has been supplying fi ne wines to the great and good of London for more than 300 years, but it’s clearly got an eye on the future, with recent investment helping to reinvent its St James’s store as a showpiece of 21st-century drinks retailing. Central to that has been the creation of a high-end spirits shop alongside its wine-focused space, allowing it to bring the same quality products and service to the likes of whisky, rum and tequila as customers have come to expect in fi ne claret and Burgundy.

The Harlaxton Road store in Grantham is the flagship location of the 20 top-notch c-stores run by Seelan Thambirajah. Alcohol has been a driving force in profitability since a 2023 refit that introduced a Premier Beer Cave, allowing the store to offer all its beer, cider, white wine and fizz at a ready-to-go chilled temperature. Seelan puts a lot of emphasis on staff training to deflect under-age sales and has his own mystery shopper scheme to ensure that high standards are being met. An attractive back-lit spirits section features a blend of premium and mainstream brands.

Booker’s Premier Beer Cave installations have helped to change the way chilled beer and wine is sold in the convenience sector, but the Meden Vale store in north Nottinghamshire has one with a difference. There’s a walk-through chill room, with doors at both ends – an ingenious solution to maximise the layout in a challenging space. BWS sales for the Matthews family’s store have gone skywards since it was added as part of a £400,000 investment in January 2024, helped by committing to the Perfect Draft system of beer machines and kegs, which have proved a big hit with customers.

Kaual Patel took the opportunity of a major expansion and refurb of his Nisa store in south London to take his beer, wines and spirits offering to the next level. The revamp included his own designs for a chilled beer cave, made to look like the strong room of a bank and called The Vault. Torridon’s drinks range goes well outside of the usual big-brand suspects found in convenience, including high-end Japanese whiskies and two own-brand craft beers. The store’s latest drinks innovation is its own gin, made partly from olive and bay tree leaves from plants grown outside the store.

Self-styled as storytellers, hype-men and educators, Good Wine Good People is on a mission to create an online destination where consumers can fall in love with wine every time they visit. The range covers 20 countries, with a personal sommelier questionnaire helping guide newcomers to a selection of wines that match their taste profile. The site also features a Hot Topics section that drills down into subjects such as women winemakers, low abvs and old vines. A Meet the Maker series of videos takes customers to meet producers around the world, building awareness and loyalty.

Virgin’s Wine Bank and Red loyalty schemes already set it apart in the specialist ecommerce wine sector, and the company continues to innovate to stand out from the crowd and move forward. A rebranding exercise has revitalised its identity and a new warehouse system has cut down on order errors and speeded up picking and packing. Smaller case sizes and the introduction of mini bottles have met changing consumer needs head on, while six in-person tasting events have helped create a sense of community among the Virgin client base, with 800 attending one in Manchester.

Founder Justin Petszaft took back ownership of Master of Malt from AB Inbev in 2024. The ecommerce spirits specialist prides itself on having a top-class range, competitive prices, lightning-fast shipping and proactive customer service. Its 11,000-plus lines cover more than 3,000 whiskies, including an exclusive series of single cask bottlings from prestigious distillers and tasting gift sets of sample-sized bottles. A Pour & Sip sample subscription service has extras including live tastings and exclusive discounts and “the world’s greatest gift vouchers” have no expiry date and accrue 5% interest a year if not used.