The Tastemaker: Jennifer Zuccarini, Founder of Fleur du Mal
The Drink: The Fleur-tini
This is part of the series we’ve started on Fleur du Mal, where we’re featuring beverage recipes as we go through the pandemic. We consider this drink perfect for the self-isolation sophisticate. You’ll need vodka or gin, dry vermouth, olives in olive brine, a cocktail shaker, a few ice cubes and a frozen glass of choice. The rule of thumb is the drier the martini, the less vermouth. My special combination is a splash of vermouth (about ¼ ounce if you’re being technical) and 2 ounces vodka. Pour into a cocktail shaker with a handful of ice cubes. Then the fun part starts, where you make it dirty, which means about ¼ ounce brine of the olive. It’s good to be dirty, but any more than that and you’re entering filthy territory. Shake it all up, pour into a frozen glass and garnish with olives.
The Tastemaker: Dave Tjhio, Wine Collector and Beverage Aficionado
The Drink: The Highball
My wife and I love to travel and discover new food, wine, spirits and cocktails. My drink of choice is Japanese whisky. I like Suntory Toki or Nikka from the barrel. If I’m going to do a cocktail, I still like to stick with a whisky base and enjoy a highball. We were in Japan last year enduring their brutal summer heat, and for me a whisky highball was refreshing and perfect way to cool things down during Happy Hour. You can make a highball with ginger ale, but I like a crisper and less sweet drink, so I use just soda water and lemon, as the whisky is too good to dilute.
The Tastemaker: Galavante Founder Christine Drinan
The Drink: Tito’s Martini, Up with a Twist
I don’t do a lot of cocktails because normally, three sips in, I find them too sugary and almost always have buyer’s remorse. That’s why I’m normally a Tito’s Martini, up with a twist. The icier and colder the martini, the better. As much as I cook, and now bake, a skill I acquired during the pandemic, I still haven’t mastered the art of the martini. When I begin to entertain again, I’m sure I will get lots of practice. But for me, drinking is social, and martinis remind me of The Polo Bar, one of my favorite spots in the city. My guy Anthony makes the perfect martini, every time, and I eat an entire bowl of their fried olives before my friends even arrive. I’m having serious nostalgia for The Polo Bar, which will be the first place I celebrate the end of the pandemic — because it’s coming.
