Flat Iron Room NYC
A few months ago I wrote a blog entry about titles and how a Self Professed “Whiskey Sommelier” Heather Greene in New York kept popping up in the media. This newer Whisky Bar, The Flat Iron Room is where she works doing educational things and such. I criticized the close ties they had to the industry and my interpretation of a Tasting event. The more I look deeply at Whiskey beyond simply drinking and collecting it, the more I realize what the Flat Iron Room, her boss and Heather are just doing what they feel is needed in a very competitive business in perhaps the toughest US city for such a Bar. If you want to stay in the business and not only compete, but thrive, you need to do things a bit better or different. I don’t agree with what some do, I just understand it better. Having a face and a “go to” person for the media is not a bad idea, it’s actually smart. I was wrong on the previous deleted post not so much in what was said but how it was said. My Apologies. When I’m wrong I’ll say it. When your passionate like me, it can piss you off. Then you realize you may see some things that need to be looked at much more differently which I have. There are at least 20 Whisk(e)y bars in the New York City Area. I’ve just started to visit them. A few weeks ago I was at the Flat Iron room. This night I had hoped to catch Heather or Tommy as they did a $1400 Dream Whiskey class with her boss Tommy Tardy but they were gone by the time I got there.

I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a Speakeasy type idea. It’s not to the extent you need a Bourbon and Branch type secret password where the staff are almost actors in a mock 20’s style secret bar. The place is very dark with a classic old feel and look. It is nice and comfortable. I liked it.
We arrived and went into an outer lobby where a hostess and older gentleman in a French Beret greeted us. We were led into the main room by Beret guy, super nice. We were never asked if we had been there before, we should have been. It took a bit to get acclimated to what was going on so a quick run through by him would have been helpful. I usually like sitting at a bar when I’m checking out Whisky but the bar was taken by what I was told were “people not going anywhere quick”. One guy had stretched out and took so much Real Estate with a women that I thought he was thinking it was his bedroom. I’m not just saying that either, they needed to get a room not another drink! There was clearly much more room there but no stools. If I had a Whisky bar I would have it with massive bar counter space and more seats.

There were a lot of staff on the floor, too many. It was common to see large groups chatting of 4-5 waiters, bar staff and such. I sometimes see this. They get bored and rather than provide the great and AAA service they are expected to provide, they get lax and complacent. I tried to start several conversations with a few as I walked about regarding the Whisky but they seemed much more interested in themselves. A live band was playing so it was hard to hear anything. It’s a Catch-22 in that if your there for the music its fine but if you want to talk, the music becomes a distraction. After we ordered a few things at the bar and stood around a bit we asked to be seated. Tables for two were at the stage which I wasn’t going to sit at. I wasn’t there for music. At first the beret guy refused to seat us at larger booth as it was for “larger parties” but he relented especially when 4-6 tables were empty. While hanging around the bar talking the bartender recommended the “Widow Jane Kentucky Bourbon” Whisky that was made in Brooklyn NY. I asked him, if it was completely made in NY? Aged and distilled? “Yes, of course”. It was 7 years old. Widow Jane is made by Cacao Prieto which began making Chocolate and booze in 2010. Cool story but a 7 year KENTUCKY bourbon from a local NYC company (which the booze is 4 years older than) the story isn’t a “yes,of course” it’s all distilled, made and aged in New York. They do add water to dilute from the Widow Jane Mine that’s in NY State. The stuff is still pretty good. As I’ve written it’s very hard to get a knowledgeable pretrained Whisky expert to serve guests in a bar. Training is needed. In a place like New York City I would imagine the turnover and poaching of knowledgeable staff must be intense. With that said it takes about 10 minutes to teach someone how to read an American Whisk(e)y label to get the clue needed to very quickly know that Widow Jane WAS NOT from New York. The Kentucky part was a pretty good clue. There is another possibility in that he knew exactly what it was but I’ll go with Knowledge not other reasons. If you can’t get this story right I’m not asking you about another thing, especially stuff from Kentucky or Scotland. I still stuck around and tried to talk/listen. I wandered over to the area’s where private bottles are locked up. People can buy by the pour or the entire bottle to be held in the locker. As I mentioned before, they weren’t that talkative. I was in a pack of wait staff twice trying to engage them but they were not in a friendly, educational or talkative mood to a customer.

Once we got seated our waiter made it over and I asked some typical “feeler” questions. What’s your favorite? What’s the best? No Pappy, what do you have that’s like Pappy? We were told the Michters 10 and 20 was being made at the same place as Pappy which was only partially true at one point but it’s not always Wheated since it it wasn’t always Stitzel Weller. He knew enough to a point then his knowledge on some things drifted. Just say I’m not sure. I was also told that the Willett 20 (that was almost gone) was the same as the Michters 20. Being that this year’s Michters 20 with (13H) on this bottle (when I checked) is not very good nor worth $40 let alone $400 a bottle in a store, this isn’t true. Last year was a SW bottling and great, this year very disappointingly different. It’s fairly common for good Whisky bars to have staff that don’t know the difference so it’s not so much his fault as this is what he figured. He said that they just got it back in stock after waiting forever to get more figuring it must be the same juice. I feel sorry for the people buying it as they will either not know the past Michters or will and will hate it. He got most things right. A “B” grade. There was no Four Roses Limited a big disappointment. Old Pultney Navigator is brand new and on the menu but they couldn’t find it. For whatever reason they had to search around for many of our selections as it did not seem organized to make this simple. I’m not going to comment much on the Whisky because much I tried was to confirm I liked it for the first time or reconfirm my impression. We tried a Michters 10 with neck Label of four digits. This is a fairly late release of I believe non-KBD provided/bottled juice. As in the last one I had it was not good, in fact I hated it. Neck labels of something like 10D7 (with a 8,9,10 and a letter) are the oldest and best, stay away from 2345 or 13+(letter)type. I tried the Rye from Catskills Distilling which I really liked. Young but real nice. They are one of my favorite newer craft places. I also like their Most Righteous Bourbon, also young but one of my favorite Craft Bourbons. Jefferson Chefs Collaborative, although a farce and I’ve never heard a good thing about, I wanted to try it for myself but they couldn’t find it either. Maybe they should have a NEW location and gradually move the newer items out to the regular spots. James Pepper 1776 15 year Rye, not a fan for the 3rd time. I’m not sure who did the Whisky menu but it’s very confusing. A few things like “Wild Turkey 14 year LTD” which is the “Tradition” but it didn’t say that. No less than 10 items like this on the menu.
I would have loved some bar food but they tried too hard to have things too “classy” to want. I got the pizza which was not typical but good.

Tardy needs to do something about the water. I’m not sure if the water carafe was dual purpose to be used in the Whisky or not. Don’t know if special water is or was available and not mentioned. The water in the carafe was very chemical laden and if it was filtered Tardy needs to look at if its working or spend some real money on a much much better filtration system. I drank neat but the ice might have been a victim of this as well. Anything this water is added to will be the worse for it.

The experience wasn’t bad. I’d say B-. They have the same problem as so many other Whisky Bars, they either never got the good stuff or are out of it. Newer places such as them missed the boat on many good items and struggle to get a respectable amount of newly released gems. Its so important for a great Whisky bar to have someone stay very very up to date on what’s coming and how it is. They are heavy on Single Malts and Scotches. Staff knowledge a bit disappointing but I’m getting used to it in all but a handful of National places.

I met a guy opening a new Whisky Bar and he said what I keep hearing. New places opening are having a super hard time hiring anyone good let alone people with Whisky knowledge. I also may set the bar way too high apparently but I will hold to my long standing thought that you better be real good if you’re working in such a place. It might be easy to hide a lack of knowledge in Utah but you better be or working very hard to be real good in places like New York.

All in all it was a nice place, nice experience and I’d recommend going. It’s not in my top 10 for US Whisky bars however.

I owed it to Heather to check the place out and waited to post something new as a result. Although I wanted to anonymously chat with her or Tardy as I had hoped, I did spend almost 3 hours and over $200 there. My observations are a representation of the management and training so in effect, I did meet them indirectly. Since most Whisky Bars would rate a D or C in my book, a “B-“ is above average. I expected and wanted more and more can be achieved so I wish them luck.

Note I’ve written to Heather and she feels that I caught some things wrong. Also her staff must take a Dave Broom course and test which she feels is unique for a place such as hers. If I revisit, I’ll update.