CLEVELAND — It's Friday night and inside what looks like an abandoned century-old brick storefront, women in evening gowns are meticulously re-creating Prohibition-era cocktails.

A pianist tinkles out the soothing Duke Ellington icon "Satin Doll" on a baby grand in the lounge and locals in the know are slipping through the coatroom and vanishing. Indeed, a small, pink, neon sign that reads The Velvet Tango Room and only appears nightly in a corner of the shuttered windows is misleading.

Behind the funky facade, there is no dancing. In fact, there is no dance floor. And the only velvet I found was in the burgundy window drapes. Instead, you have entered what could easily be Shangri-La for lovers of the perfectly prepared cocktail, where shortcuts and large orders give way to spirited libations that can take up to 10 minutes to measure and mix. True aficionados don't mind the wait.

The Velvet Tango Room — 2095 Columbus Road; www.velvettangoroom.com; 216-241-8869 — is a few blocks from downtown Cleveland but a throwback to when going out for a cocktail and conversation was exhilarating, or calming, or both. As a first-timer, the style strikes me as inviting, with its soft rose colored walls and dark wood floors. It is dimly lit by vintage wall sconces and unobtrusive halogen pendants hanging over the bar. The mood is more comfy than cool.

But owner Paulius Nasvytis wasn't out to capture interior design awards when he opened 13 years ago. He wanted to reconnect discriminating drinkers to the past, a hideaway for business travelers in Cleveland tired of hotel lobby lounges and bars that are run by the book.

Both affable and easily approachable, Nasvytis and his co-owner and head bartender, Carol are out to spread the gospel of authenticity and looking for converts, not just customers.

"We believe that the classic post-Prohibition cocktail, expertly resurrected with only the freshest, finest, historically accurate ingredients," he contends, "can whisk you back to the sophistication of Paris in the '30s, to the glamour of Hollywood and Havana in the '40s."

Indeed, the understated circa 1940s atmosphere of the Velvet Tango Room itself mixes well with Nasvytis' mission.

His five female bartenders wear evening gowns and jewelry on Friday and Saturday nights and smart skirts during the week. No regimented uniforms here. They work behind a restored, solid Cuban mahogany bar lined with 10 stools and under a tin ceiling punctured with several bullet holes. (Both were rescued from the building's past as a speakeasy in the '20s and, more recently a "beat-up, boarded-up saloon" says the owner).

Nasvytis has house rules that, along with his recipes, appeal to cocktail purists. "We have a tone and prices that keep out the roaming gangs of yahoos who come into bars and glue themselves to ESPN. We have a TV but it only shows black-and-white Turner Classic Movies. Also, we don't make Fuzzy Navels, Chocolate Martinis or even vodka tonics," he says. Plus, all Velvet Tango Room cocktails are a flat $15 including tax and some labor intensive, complex recipes like a Ramos Gin Fizz may five to 10 minutes up to 15 minutes to make if the bar is busy."

Watch the bartenders work and you can see why meticulously replicating a classic cocktail costs money and takes time. Only premium, distinctively distilled liquors are poured from the well. A scotch sour starts with Johnny Walker Black Label. A Manhattan begins with Makers Mark bourbon. All water is filtered or purified The bartenders know the flavors and tastes of every bottle of liquor carried and which one should be used to create a perfect version of the original cocktail.

To replicate the astringent taste of the classic Italian Negroni — gin, sweet vermouth, Campari and bitters — the currently popular Hendricks Gin is deemed too fruity and flowery" and the taste would be lost. Tanquerey Rangpur is considered a little too citrus tasting. Says Nasvytis: "Plymouth is the most appropriate gin for a Negroni. It's a big, friendly London dry gin."

Every cocktail ingredient is said to be freshly prepared or homemade. "Do you want to eat an apple a half-hour after it's cut? Lemon juice and limejuice start to oxidize when it is pre-squeezed. So we cut and squeeze the lemon or limejuice right into the shaker when we make the cocktail," Nasvytis explains.

Other rules include measuring the cocktail and the ingredients on a digital scale right down to the gram or drop, using 1 1/4-inch-size ice cubes, handshaking it — if called for — for three minutes, pouring it and letting it settle for 30 seconds.

Customers aren't shortchanged on garnishes either. "Instead of buying a $20 gallon of maraschino cherries that have the taste and texture of a vinyl car seat," says the proprietor, "we use Italian cherries that cost $138 for a single can." He also makes his own ginger-sugar syrup, grows his own mint for mojitos and juleps, uses Vietnamese cinnamon when the recipe calls for the spice and infuses vodka with fresh fruit. "We don't even carry artificially flavored vodkas." Nasvytis sniffs.

More bars today have cocktail menus, but The Velvet Tango Room has three — one for classic international cocktails, like the Ernest Hemingway Daiquiri originally created in Havana for the perennially thirsty scribe, one for enlightened aromatics such as an Apricot Lady invented by the house bartenders with a base of white rum and apricot liqueur, and a third for enlightened sours such as a rye whiskey sour made with the original but rarely promoted rye, Old Overholt. Each drink is described by Nasvytis and rated by "potency" and "flavor intensity."

The Velvet Tango Room is more than just a barroom, so don't stop there. Beyond it is a carpeted lounge with couches, tables, a gleaming baby grand piano and live mellow jazz with different groups performing and no cover charge. After a long day of deal making, it's a great place to decompress.

The Back Room is, no surprise, a faux speakeasy behind the coatroom but not a wild and crazy hideout. It's rather dignified, with leather sofas, a wood-burning fireplace, and another baby grand piano that gives it a private club feel without the snobbishness. However, to gain access, you need a reservation and the password of the day. There's no charge to get in, but inside it's a one- drink minimum.

This is the place to order a Bourbon Daisy, described by Nasvytis as the "bad boy drink of Prohibition, a cascade of flavors that starts with a full, head-on rush of bourbon and popular with flappers and the men in the underground 'hospitality rooms' of the 1920." I took a pass.

To me, the real deal that would have me dancing into the Velvet Tango Room is the weekday "happy hours" — 4:30-7 p.m. All specialty drinks on the menus are discounted to $10.

Owner Paulius Nasvytis is doing his part to pump up the economy.

Chris Barnett writes on business travel strategies that save time, money and stress. Reach him at cbarn@aol.com. To find out more about Chris Barnett and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.