EE Grimshaw
Google
I admit, my hackles were already up with this place because it advertised itself as a speakeasy and yet I was able to identify it from a block or two away. This place would NEVER survive a single night during the era of Prohibition. I decided to put those concerns to the side though and stopped by on Friday night with my Skipper and Old Man Chum for a few drinks right when the place opened at 5PM. It was predictably empty when we showed up and there was only a smattering of customers when we left a little less than two hours later - the Financial District is very hit or miss crowd-wise on a Friday. The bar/restaurant next door (Treadwell Park) was bustling, so the preference was clear. And the customers over there couldn't claim they didn't know this place was here, because it's not really a speakeasy. Okay, I'm done complaining about that. Onward.
The vibe in here is kind of weird, in my opinion. It felt almost like a sterile hotel bar with honestly not a ton of personality. There were a lot of pieces of furniture that were noticeably dinged up, and it was kind of drabby. That said (and part of this for sure was because it wasn't busy), we were easily able to secure some comfortable seating in the back room on couches that allowed us to lounge and look at each other, so arguably that's all you really need here. I didn't do a massive deep dive on the history of this location, but to me it felt like this wasn't its original vibe or scheme, especially since the bathroom situation required you to go through a door marked 'Employees Only' into the public space of Treadwell Park next door to use THEIR bathroom (which had a frighteningly loose toilet seat that was made scarier by the ingestion of two cocktails).
Our waiter was VERY nice and accommodating. (The Skipper mentioned it several times, and she was correct to do so.) He was the only person up front that I saw, so he had to monitor the bar situation as well as duck back to our area a few times to check in. I don't recall having to aggressively search him out for anything, and when we needed to leave, it was easy/quick to do so.
I ended up ordering two cocktails, both of which caught my eye during my online recon - the Purple Rain and the Brown Sugar Smoked Old Fashioned. Two very different drinks, and I had very different opinions on them. The Purple Rain had one of my favorite cocktail chum accompaniments, egg whites. I like them because they give the texture of a drink both a frothy and smooth vibe, but I thought the egg whites were likely shaken too aggressively prior to insertion because the froth was pretty intense and it actually took a bit of an effort to locate the drink underneath. It's also possible that because of that, I ended up with a naughty version of a milk mustache. The drink itself was pretty eh; I think they relied too heavily on tartier fruit flavors, so the overall result was more akin to Dimetapp. The Old Fashioned was the highlight though, with a heavy emphasis on the smoke and the sweet, which to me is the perfect way to pair the bourbon. Very scrumptious.
This one was just okay for me. The cocktail list isn't particularly extensive nor innovative, and nothing here really stood out to me that distinguished Black Hound from a myriad of other establishments in the area. I'd recommend Treadwell Park as an alternative, but as mentioned, my only direct experience in there involved me almost falling into their toilet.
