Brandy Library

Time Out found the bookshelves holding bottles of brown spirits, not paperbacks, and a thick-bound menu of more than 1,500 whiskeys and cocktails¹. The house rules are just as grown-up: jazz on the stereo or a pianist at the piano, no groups over six, no babies and a minimum drinking age of 25².

Flavien Desoblin opened it in lower Manhattan in 2004³. By 2005 it was running a Spirit School, and the only place you could smoke was outside⁴.

It turned 20 in November 2024, which Tribeca Citizen pointed out is something like dog years in the New York restaurant scene⁵. In August 2026 Desoblin opened Dram Central at 14 East 44th Street, a few blocks from Grand Central, with a vibe anyone who's been to Brandy Library would recognize³. It's twice the size, which left him plenty of empty shelf space to fill³. The original is still at 25 North Moore Street, open from four in the afternoon, and until two in the morning Thursday through Saturday⁶.