Rye Detector

“Too much of anything is bad,” Mark Twain once wrote, “But too much good whiskey is barely enough.”

Well, here’s enough, and just barely: introducing Flatiron Room, a lively, dixie manor of a watering hole that pours over 500 delicious varieties of sweet, sweet brown, opening tomorrow night.

And here’s the best way to drink that whiskey: with a private session in Flatiron Room’s cloistered upstairs tasting salon, offering a balustrade view of the bar below.

So call Flatiron Room. Make a reservation for yourself and a date, or a group of friends. Then just sit back and relax on alligator skin banquettes while enjoying everything from Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve 23yr to $2700 a-bottle Glenmorangie Pride 1981, with expert tutorials from pros like Diageo’s Master of Whisky LJ Heffernan. All while jazzy strains drift up from dixieland troubadours, who play on the velvet-curtained stage just below.

Meanwhile downstairs … a black walnut bar and bowtied barmen, who shimmy up and down ladders pulling every variety of scotch, bourbon and rye from bottle-filled cabinets. View the menu (prices not quite finalized).

And if you find a particular spirit you really cotton to, Flatiron Room will tag it with your name and store it in their wall of chicken-wired whiskey lockers.

But beware: one locker may barely be enough.