Wynand Fockink

Beside the Krasnapolsky runs an alley so narrow that you walk past it without noticing. Halfway along sits a door under an old-fashioned sign, and behind it they have been distilling since 1679. The business started as De Gekroonde Wildeman, run by one Jan Bierman, and only around 1730 did Wijnand Fockink take it over and give it his name.

Inside it looks more like an old apothecary than a café, with dark panelling, shelves of hand-labelled bottles, earthenware pots and sand across the wooden floor. Chairs are absent, because this is a tasting room where you taste standing up, and that difference shows itself straight away in the ritual.

Your glass is tulip-shaped and filled past the brim, so full that the drink stands domed above the rim. Lifting it is out of the question, so you bend forward with your hands behind your back and take the first sip while the glass stays on the bar. That is how it has gone here for centuries, and the odds of getting it right first time are slim.

In that glass you will usually find genever, the drink that began life as medicine, or one of the liqueurs with names only a house like this would invent: Volmaakt Geluk, Bruidstranen, Hansje in de Kelder. A glass costs a few euros and the door opens around midday.

Back in the Damstraat we turn left, where the Dam opens up. Behind the palace stands the Nieuwe Kerk, and the little street we want runs right alongside it.