Cold Night, Hot Town

Gastronomical delights and libations awaited the brave soul willing to withstand breath-stealing, teeth-chattering cold. With two hot openings drawing overflow crowds, you just had to know where to look.

One place to look was on Chapel Street at Ordinary for the opening night of the New Haven Cocktail Museum. People popped into the foyer of the popular bar of the old Taft Hotel on a burst of cold air only to find a crowd of people standing just inside the door in their coats.

Historian Colin Caplan, pictured above, the cocktail museum’s curator, was regaling the captive audience with tales from New Haven’s link to cocktail history.

“Jerry Thomas: You’ve never heard of him,” Caplan said, cocktail in hand. ​“He’s the grandfather of cocktails in America and he was from New Haven. He had been to what was called the Moon Blazer and wrote the first English language cocktail book in 1862. We have some history of New Haven here, Prohibition news, old…”

“I know he’s interesting and all,” Ordinary co-owner Tim Cabral interrupted, ​“but I figure this will help warm you up.”

“This is Tim,” Caplan told the crowd as Cabral passed out small plastic cups and began pouring from a bottle of Wild Turkey Rye. ​“He’s one of the owners at Ordinary. He’s got whiskey.”

Such was the crowd inside the bar that the owners were maintaining a strict one in, one out policy so as not to draw the ire of the fire marshal.

Awaiting their turn to go inside to taste the specialty drinks crafted in the spirit of the museum and partake of a Wild Turkey Reserve tasting was its own reward. Not only did they get a small taste of whiskey to keep warm; they also got food including piping hot and deliciously melty grilled cheese triangles.

“Will this museum be around for a while?” someone asked.

“This museum will be around forever,” Caplan replied. ​“As long as you support it …”

Just then, out pops Jason Sobocinski shouting, ​“Pigs in a blanket!”

Caplan proudly showed off the fact that the cocktail museum made the front page of the New Haven Register. (Read that story from Mary O’Leary here.) He noted that the majority of the stories on the front page of Thursday’s paper were about alcohol and marijuana.

“Five cover stories about booze,” he said. ​“It’s kind of funny.”

Swingin’ At The Blake

Another good place to get out of the biting cold Thursday night was a couple of blocks down toward the medical district at the corner of High and George Streets, where developers Randy and Claire Salvatore invited a few hundred friends to their new place for live music, drinks, and small plates.

That new place being their latest venture, The Blake Hotel, and those small plates coming out of the kitchen of the hotel’s restaurant, Hamilton Park. The restaurant is run by New Haven’s first Michelin star chef, Matt Lambert.

After a whirlwind week that featured the hotel’s official ribbon cutting ceremony, the mood was relaxed and lively. People poured in out of the cold and handed off their jackets, making themselves at home in the many places in the hotel to lounge and chat with friends, while a roving band of musicians at one point broke into ​“When The Saints Go Marching In.”

City transit director Doug Hausladen caught up with Yale Alder Hacibey Catalbasoglu, who was dividing his time between typing away on his laptop, greeting people, grabbing a drink from the bar, and snagging tasty bites from roving servers.

Catalbasoglu bumped into former city Economic Development Administrator Matt Nemerson and his wife, Yale Professor Marian Chertow.

Fellow Alders Jodi Ortiz, Abby Roth, and Anna Festa also joined the festivities.

Salvatore made the rounds Thursday receiving congratulations from city officials and fellow development and construction professionals like Langan Engineering Vice President Timothy Onderko and Ernest Pagan of the carpenters union.

City arts czar Andy Wolf said that The Blake will be one of his new early morning haunts for enjoying a coffee and a paper.

Chef Lambert, shown slicing fresh ham, was busy making sure that there were plenty of treats coming out of his kitchen including a menu of passed hors d’oeuvres that included mince and cheese croquettes, raw oysters, classic mignonette fried oysters, duck and pork terrine, mustard octopus with roasted pepper and potato. For those with a sweet tooth, there were confections such as cream puffs and lemon tarts.

But the busy chef made some time for a few pictures.