FASHION

Ales Of Hoffman

When I wrote a post earlier this month about new summer fragrances (“Fragrant Escapes”), I thought it would be fun to match each new scent to a vacation destination—I referenced chic, exotic places like...

by Jane Larkworthy

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When I wrote a post earlier this month about new summer fragrances (“Fragrant Escapes”), I thought it would be fun to match each new scent to a vacation destination—I referenced chic, exotic places like the Amalfi Coast, the south of France, Bali. But when I inhaled Japanese Agarwood from Lisa Hoffman Beauty, I smelled ginger ale. And I wondered: Was there perhaps some exotic locale connected to ginger ale? Having gotten to know Ms. Hoffman a bit since she launched her eponymous beauty line a few years back, I thought otherwise: “Lisa Hoffman seems like the kind of woman who’d serve her own homemade ginger ale to guests on the back porch of her country house,” I wrote.

Imagine my surprise, then, when Lisa showed up at my office yesterday with a bottle of homemade ginger ale in her hands. “When did I tell you I made ginger ale?” she laughed, handing over a lovely antique bottle of ginger syrup and instructing me to mix a small bit of it with club soda and lemon.

She then explained how she got into making ginger ale for her husband Dustin. (Yes, it’s that Hoffman.) “It’s his favorite soft drink,” she confided. “Of course he prefers Canada Dry, but he drinks mine when I make it. He wants to stay married.”