Hartford Flavor Company owners Tom and Lelaneia Dubay have a new venture, just months from opening.
The pair, who launched their liqueur and vodka distillery in 2014, are launching a farm-to-table restaurant and game lounge, The Cocktail Parlour . The new restaurant and lounge, located at 54 Pratt St., opens after a year-long renovation and redesign of the former short-lived Rio Gill and Bar space that stood shuttered for years.
“It’s been a long road of construction and our fan base has really been anticipating this,” Tom Dubay said. “We keep getting asked, when is it going to open? We could now finally say very soon.”
The Dubays, who took advantage of the city’s Hart Lift grant program, said that they are still waiting on permitting from the city. But the space has been mostly built out with some small interior decorating and appliance installation still ongoing.
“We’re putting up chandeliers,” Lelaneia Dubay said. “There is a couple small touches still left.”
In the back of the restaurant, a game lounge with an art deco atmosphere and eclectic furniture around a gas fireplace creates a scene right out of the 1930s. The vision is of an old-time living room environment for those who want to just “hang out” instead of dine and dash.
“There will be board games and card games,” Tom Dubay said. “It will be a place for people to come in and socialize for a few hours, especially downtown dwellers. We kind of see it as an extension of their own living room. Grab a cocktail, play games and have fun.”
The space itself is 4,200-square-feet with 150 dedicated seats inside the restaurant space and an additional private room in the back that can seat around 30 people for private events. The lounge area can hold up to 45 people, according to the Dubays.
“We’ve had a lot of people walk in during construction and tell us they feel like this has always been here,” Tom Dubay said. “It feels kind of old-world yet modern, so it has been fun to watch people react to that.”
‘Magic in a bottle’
Lelaneia and Tom Dubay had made batches of cranberry liqueur at home for years.
But one day, the pair decided to do some experimenting.
Growing tired of the same liqueur flavors they turned to their backyard garden. Cranberry liqueur became lavender and then rose, chai spice, and birch soon followed. Natural ingredients created a freshness they quickly learned could not be replicated by anything store-bought.
“Many currently available liqueurs are either muddied in flavor with many ingredients, variations on the same flavor, or hideously artificial and over sweetened. We decided to venture into unusual flavors,” Lelaneia Dubay said.
The pair would often bring their creations to family parties and gatherings and they became such a hit that they knew they had stumbled upon something special.
“Magic in a bottle,” is what some of their family members began calling the libations.
Today, Hartford Flavor now produces and distributes 12 all-natural liqueurs — cucumber, rose, lavender, birch, chai spice, roasted dandelion root, among them — and two vodkas, organic and vanilla, in nine states. The distillery launched a signature chocolate liqueur last summer with its sweet “liquid chocolate pudding” taste for those with a sweet tooth. The chocolate liqueur ranks among the more popular offerings.
“We like to add our own twists on things,” Lelaneia Dubay said. “Birch and bourbon is one of our classic cocktails and we added some banana. The drink is now banana, birch and bourbon and it is excellent. It’s still a bourbon cocktail but we’re actually using the banana peel to give it that edge.”
To Lelaneia, who began experiencing dietary sensitivity to gluten over a decade ago, fresh, local and organic ingredients are the only kind she uses.
“Being organic and farm to table for me means clean food. It means no chemicals, artificial colors or artificial flavors,” Lelaneia Dubay said. “It means genuine ingredients that are sourced locally. Local is always best environmentally as well as tastefully. A local tomato will always taste better than one that is shipped in 3,000 miles away. So it’s about health, cleanliness, and about supporting our local farmers.”
The Cocktail Parlour
The Dubays admit that it is now crunch time before their longtime dream becomes reality.
The restaurant’s menu, which will feature dishes sourced from local ingredients, is still being put together.
“The cocktail menu is pretty developed though and those will be really unusual cocktails that are highly developed with their technique,” Lelaneia Dubay said. “So clarified punches and unusual techniques of infusions creating some very New York-style cocktails.”
Cocktail clarification is the process of removing unwanted particles and impurities from mixed drinks to improve the flavor, texture and appearance. Not all other places do it, but the Dubays pride themselves on their cocktails’ purity and freshness.
“We haven’t announced our chef yet, but he is renowned in California and coastal Connecticut,” Tom Dubay said. “He will bring a real commitment to local farm fresh foods as well as the sea coast. So it’s going to be really playing on the local farmers, which is right up there with the consistency of our brand.”
The Cocktail Parlour’s logo is a new adaptation on the Hartford Flavor Company’s Goddess Diana enjoying a libation.
“She’s a Roman Goddess, so taking that classical architecture and really having that as the underpinning,” Lelaneia Dubay said. “It really goes with the classic cocktail bars that were emerging after prohibition.”
Anyone can visit the Hartford Flavor Company’s distillery at 30 Arbor St. on Fridays and Saturdays. Diana’s Lair , the distillery’s tasting room, is open Fridays from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. The experience lasts about an hour and is $15 per person. The tasting room can also be reserved for private events. To learn more visit hartfordflavor.com
Stephen Underwood can be reached at sunderwood@courant.com
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