Brooklyn’s Secret Science Club is a nightclub with taxidermy

The long and unlikely friendship of a Brooklyn author and a radio host was forged through Tasmanian wildlife and taxidermy.

Back in 2006, Margaret Mittelbach had just published a book about her search for the now-extinct Tasmanian tiger when one of her co-authors suggested organizing a New York taxidermy competition as a great way to promote their new book.

Mittelbach, now 59, reached out to radio host and science enthusiast Dorian Devins to serve as one of the judges. Devins, who had previously welcomed Mittelbach as a guest, agreed — and “weirdly, a lot of people also showed up with all kinds of crazy stuff,” the author recalled.

The outpouring sparked an idea: The Secret Science Club, with co-founders Mittelbach and Devins set to celebrate its 17th anniversary in the new year.

The club’s initial venue was a restaurant basement, “giving a little air of secrecy, a clubby feeling,” recalled Devins, who is now also a jazz singer. “And we just wanted to come up with something, a little catchy name.”

The concept took off as the two created a bond while attracting science enthusiasts from across the city for monthly Brooklyn get-togethers where cocktails and music accompanies word of breakthroughs in various fields of science.

The duo agreed on a main theme for the group: Science should be a topic for discussion in a nightclub, far from “the old and gray guys in a boring lecture hall,” recalled Devins. The aim was attracting artists from diverse fields to spark creativity and collaborations.

“Science in a nightclub — that’s weird and also thought provoking and exciting,” said Mittelbach. “We’ve had people who’ve met and gotten married at Secret Science Club.”

While the cocktails are mixed by professional bartenders for meetings at the Bell House, “we make up the names (for the drinks) based on whatever the talk is about,” Mittelbach said. “Sometimes they are clever, other times they may not be.”

Even during the pandemic, the duo continued to host the series over Zoom while providing participants with recipes to make their own drinks at home.

For first-time arrivals like Matt Wisniewski, 32, a Brooklyn based IT professional, the club is an excellent place to meet with other science enthusiasts — even those with two left feet.

“I like it here because, first, I am not much of a dancer and, second, I love to learn cool stuff,” he said. “So it’s more fun for me.”

Others like Caesar Mendez, 64, a retired curator at the American Museum of Natural History, keep returning for the talk shows. But he has to travel an hour and half each way from the Bronx.

“I just wish if they could do these events in more than one spot, so that the sessions would be more accessible,” he said.

But more venues would require more money, and the club relies on yearly fundraisers and some financial help from the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs to keep things afloat.

For many New Yorkers, the fun of a nightclub doesn’t really begin without cocktails. So each talk session comes with a unique drink of its own. A recent discussion of ants featured a cocktail called Myrmeration — which mimics the word myrmecology, the study of ants.

Another, on the science of sound, provided Sonic Tonic. And for a talk on the secrets of life, why not Stealth Operation?

As life slowly returns to a post-pandemic normal, Devins said, they have nothing fancy planned. But the pair still collaborate on ways to make the event stand out, sometimes pairing the talks with live music events and other times creating unique musical playlists.

“I would definitely want more hybrid things, like mixing poetry or music with some kind of science film or a science drama,” Mittelbach said.