Whisk(e)y Apostle

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned to my buddy Sam that there was going to be a Macallan dinner at New York Prime in Atlanta. I read him the menu, whisky pairings, and cigars included in this event. His response to me was that it “sounded like sin” and he was game if I was. This little event also coincided with Father’s Day and I just happen to be the relatively new father of a beautiful 10 month old little girl. So we decided to go and Sam’s lovely wife Sandra was even kind enough to drive us as she was having dinner out with friends last night too. This is one of those moments where the stars all kind of aligned.

Neither Sam or I had ever been to New York Prime before. I do love and appreciate good steak and I’ve killed a cow or two at most of the steakhouses in Atlanta but for some reason I’d never been to New York Prime. I’ll be honest and say that when we arrived I was not expecting too much. There was a line out the door and it was not moving very fast. There was no direction about what to do if you were there for the event or just dinner. We arrived promptly at 7:00PM and didn’t get up to the front of the line until almost 7:30 PM. By then I was already seeing salads coming out and thought that we might have missed the the first two courses. I was also a little taken aback that they were just sitting people around the restaurant and bar instead of a separate room. However, when we were guided to our seats everything changed for the better.

Despite everyone sitting down at different times your “clock” didn’t start until you sat down. That meant that even though others were getting their steak already Sam and I were greeted by our outstanding server and brought two perfectly cut Ashton cigars and a nice measure of Macallan Fine Oak 15 (a personal favorite). She told us to just let her know when we wanted to move on to salad and that would tell them when to start our steaks. The event was very crowded and (in my opinion) overbooked but our server was great every step of the way. One great scotch and food course led to another one. All the scotches were great but I’d peg the Macallan 18 as my favorite of the bunch and Sam concurred.

From the cigars and scotch to the 22 ounce rib steak and biggest effing piece of cheesecake I’ve ever seen this night was all about decadence and indulgence. This is a “manly” event in the old sense of the word. There were women there but it was mostly men eating big steaks with big scotch in a room full of cigar smoking. This is dinner Sinatra style. This was living!

Out of curiousity, Sam and I did a rough estimate of what the food, scotch, and cigars would run you retail and it was well over $150. That made the $59.99 price tag almost criminally low. Kudos to New York Prime for these great events. That said, there were a few things off putting. I think they really needed make the event smaller. Given the space constraints it was way too crowded. Going hand-in-hand with that they need to work check in and seating better. This is also not a led tasting of scotches. The atmosphere and cigar smoke make that very difficult. It’s more a great dinner event with scotch. There is a brand ambassador there who comes around but given the size of the event it was difficult to really spend much time talking to him. There were also a number of very pretty young ladies in very tight and very very short black dresses talking to everyone. I’m not sure if they were employeed by the restaurant or Macallan but they didn’t seem to serve any purpose other than eye candy. They weren’t even Pour Bunnies.

I’ll also say that New York Prime is not a quiet dinner for two kind of place. It’s loud, boistrous, and very heavy on cigar smoke. Basically, the ultimate place for a serious guys night out. All in all, we had a terrific time and I’ll be anxiously awaiting their next dinner. I started the day with a wonderful Father’s Day gift of two great bottles of whisk(e)y and finished with this great evening. I must be living right. I hope to see some of you at the next one.

Drink wisely my friends,

Richard