Vendredi soir. Cinq heures. The week is over; the evening is long.
Suze is the bottle the French keep on the counter and rarely explain — a gentian liqueur, bright yellow, gathered in the mountains and best drunk by the sea. Pleasantly bitter, a little wild. With fresh lemon and very cold tonic it becomes the easiest drink of the summer: low-proof, sun-colored, made for staying a while. This one comes to us by way of Rebekah Peppler's Apéritif: Cocktail Hour the French Way — her world and ours are the same.
The Suze Tonic
Ingredients
- 1½ oz Suze
- 1 oz fresh lemon juice
- 3 dashes Angostura bitters
- 5 oz dry tonic, well chilled (Fever-Tree or Q)
- Lemon wedge, to finish
- Ice
Method
- Fill a Collins glass with ice.
- Add the Suze, lemon juice, and bitters.
- Stir to combine.
- Top with the cold tonic.
- Finish with a lemon wedge.
A note: pour the Suze lightly to start — it has a gentle vegetal bite — and let the lemon temper it. At this proof, you're allowed two.
The Bite — Radishes with Poppy Butter
- 1 bunch fresh radishes, tops left on
- Good unsalted butter, softened — mixed with 1 tsp poppy seeds and a pinch of salt
- Flaky sea salt — Maldon or fleur de sel
Trim the radishes, leaving a little of the green for elegance. Arrange them on a small plate, the poppy butter alongside in a pretty dish, and finish with a generous pinch of flaky salt. The simplest, most French thing you can serve — the only rule is good butter.
The Dress
With something this sun-colored, we'd wear the Victoria Dress in Sweet Pea Stripe — our signature tiered maxi in a soft, painterly stripe, belted at the waist. A garden stripe for a garden drink; it already knows its way around a bunch of radishes.
A drink, a bite, a dress. À vendredi.
