TASTE: ALIAS — A martini alias for The Maker scent

Jun 2

At The Maker Hotel, F+B Director Pia Bazzani was challenged to craft cocktails that paired with The Maker Hotel’s perfume range. Her cocktail Alias is the counterpart to their Alias scent.

Story: Susie Davidson Powell
Photos: Victoria Sedefian/The Dishing
Location: The Maker Lounge, Hudson, N.Y.

The cocktail: Alias, a gin and vermouth martini with soju and pickled shallot.
The perfume: Alias, a genderless scent inspired by guests checking into the hotel under an alias, or incognito. The eau de parfum is woody and floral with notes of freesia, orchid, rice milk, and sandalwood.

The ingredients: Xoriguer Gin de Mahon, Soju, Bordiga Extra Dry Vermouth, black lemon, soy pickled shallots (finely diced, pickled in soy + dropped into the glass for a delicate, slightly saline bite)

The inspiration:
“The Maker already had this beautiful fragrance collection inspired by different archetypes and moods. Lev (Ed. note: the owner, Lev Glazman) challenged me to think whether those fragrances could somehow translate into cocktails without being gimmicky. I was more interested in the emotion and transportive feeling that aromas tie in to memory. A fragrance and a cocktail can bring you right back to a specific memory or place.

So instead of trying to recreate perfumes literally, we started thinking about atmosphere. What does this scent feel like or where does it take me? We built drinks around those ideas. It became much more sensorial than I originally thought.

The Alias perfume has such a fresh, clean scent that we wanted the cocktail to feel the same way. It's light and bright, but still has a bit of a bite to it. We also wanted it to be interactive. It comes with a demitasse spoon so you can add more of that Gibson-esque punch of the soy-pickled shallots, if you'd like, or you can simply express the lemon peel and let the botanicals and citrus shine. Or do both. It's very much a choose-your-own-adventure!