Time travel—admit it, you’d love to try it. Perhaps revisiting a time when a nice night on the town meant dressing up; a time of prohibition era jazz music, sipping fabulous whiskey and relaxing in a club-like atmosphere. Well, you don’t have to time travel but you do have to make it to New York City. An upscale whiskey and spirits parlor called The Flatiron Room is where you can find one of the largest selections of whiskey on the East Coast.
“We opened the fine spirits parlor four months ago with almost 600 varieties of whiskey,” said Tommy Tardie, owner of The Flatiron Room. “We have also incorporated the bottles into the décor and architecture so when you walk into the space you will see amber bottles with lights. It makes for a powerful statement.” Tardie explained what kind of whiskey is found at Flatiron: “We carry everything from New Make Spirit, which is like moonshine, to a rare, $20,000 bottle of John Walker, which has only 330 bottles in existence.”
“What’s unique to us is the Bottle Keep Program where you can purchase the bottle and become part of the bottle keep family,” Tardie continued. “We send out members a welcome letter and entitlement cards that allow you, or anyone you want, to drink from that bottle. On each bottle is a hand [written] tag with the person’s name and when it was purchased. We have close to 200 members already.” How does he keep his staff well-educated on the different varieties of whiskey? “They take weekly tests, held on Whiskey Wednesdays,” Tardie explained. “If someone asks us a question we have to be prepared to know the answer.”
The Flatiron Room also hosts live entertainment every night. “We have a room with a state-of-the-art audio and video system where we have live entertainment for a mature-minded group of people,” Tardie told us. “We aren’t just another bar. We want people to come in, relax, hang out and be entertained.” In addition to whiskey, they also serve small plates designed for sharing, like braised short ribs, Scotch eggs, oysters and scallops.
Upstairs there is a tasting room where they offer tastings every other week for up to 20 people. “A lot of corporations and Fortune 500 companies have been booking the room to treat their clients or top management to different levels of classes. One company did an extravagant tasting of 20-year-old whiskeys while we had a fun one [with] Mars Candy who wanted to pair their chocolate with whiskey,” Tardie said. “We are unique to New York in that we offer food, whiskey, mixology, live entertainment and an educational component.”
