FiDi Loses Lively Cuban Cocktail and Live Jazz Bar Blacktail This Week

One of the Financial District’s liveliest cocktail bars, with live jazz and Cuban drinks, is closing this week after more than a three-year run.

Blacktail — the second project from the award-winning cocktail team behind the Dead Rabbit — opened in 2016 inspired by American bars that moved to Havana, Cuba during Prohibition. January 11 will be the last day to score a rum and coke. Owners Sean Muldoon and Jack McGarry announced that the bar would be closing in a recent Instagram post, writing that, “operating a bar, especially in a challenging location, proved to be a stretch economically.”

Comments from fans of Blacktail flooded the Instagram post — some to mourn the loss of their favorite venue for live jazz, others to make last-minute plans, but most to share their hopes that Blacktail would reopen in New York City soon.

The bar, which served revamped takes on classic 20th century drinks, was best known for its 88-page menu of nearly 50 cocktails. Especially popular options were its take on a rum and coke, with Puerto Rican rum, amaro, Coca-Cola, Champagne, and bitters, as well as four versions of the daiquiri, including banana, pineapple, and strawberry.

The team certainly knowns how to mix an award-winning drink: In 2016, just months after Blacktail opened, the Dead Rabbit scored the top spot on the World’s 50 Best Bars List, organized by Drinks International Magazine. That’s what the team will focus on moving forward, specifically on expansion of that acclaimed concept. A New Orleans location will open this year, with potential locations to follow in Boston, Nashville, Washington D.C., and Dublin.

Commenters who begged for Blacktail to reopen may soon be rewarded, too, with Muldoon and McGarry saying they hope to reopen “in New York City or elsewhere.”