Mariena Mercer Boarini Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Today we're bringing you the second episode of our new travel miniseries, Destination Cherry Bombe. Where are we headed? We're going to Las Vegas. Each Wednesday this month I'll be celebrating bright lights on the Vegas culinary scene. Join me to discover the chefs, mixologists, and innovators defining the city, and taking the food scene to new heights.
My guest today is Mariena Mercer Boarini, the visionary mixologist at the Wynn. A native of Las Vegas, Mariena grew up loving chemistry and flavor combinations. She is a big believer in tapping into one's creativity, and she also believes that magic is all around us. As you can imagine, this translates into some incredible cocktails. Mariena and I talk about her career, the drinks she's proudest of, the women who inspire her on the Vegas scene, and more. She is a very special human, as you're about to learn. Stay tuned for my chat with Mariena Mercer Boarini.
This special Destination Cherry Bombe series is presented by Las Vegas. I visited Vegas last month and had the best time. I'd been watching all this amazing Las Vegas activity from afar and having lots of FOMO, new resorts, the Sphere, all the great residencies, and most interesting to me, all the new restaurants and incredible female talent. From chefs to restaurateurs to mixologists and pastry chefs, the city has become such a culinary destination that the 2024 World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards took place there last week. Las Vegas is packed with an amazing array of restaurants, and you can find the best of the best from around the world right in this one city. Truly, no matter what you're looking for, from omakase to steakhouses, dinner and a show, lively poolside cafes, or fab food halls, Las Vegas is fully focused on hospitality, and making you and your taste buds happy. Plus, whatever your food and drink preferences are, there's something for you. Zero proof, vegan options, gluten-free, it's all there. If you're like me and plan your trips around food, then put Las Vegas on your must visit list. Learn more and put your trip at visitlasvegas.com/culinary.
This is fun news. We will be hosting an event in Las Vegas this month, so be sure to keep an eye on our Instagram or sign up for our newsletter at cherrybombe.com and be the first to know. I can't wait to come back to this city. If you have any recos for me, DM me on Instagram @kerrybombe.
Now let's hear from today's guest. Mariena, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Thank you for having me. It was great meeting you, and I'm so excited to chat with you.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, it was great meeting you too. I have to say, you give off such a magical vibe and I read that you believe magic is everywhere.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
So that's definitely my saying in life. I believe magic is everywhere, and I feel like if you're continually looking for the magic in life, you're continually finding it. I'm always looking for the wonder and the whimsy. I've always been a very curious person, so yeah, I'm always on the hunt for that magic and always getting it.
Kerry Diamond:
Were you like that as a kid?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
I definitely was. I was very introspective as a child. Definitely would always find my nose in a book, but I was always obsessed with flavor as a child in a magical way. Some of my first experiments were with jelly beans, and I would take a poster board and glue the different flavor combinations and catalog them, and keep them in my room and things like that. Definitely always had a thing for flavor, and always was looking to put it in magical little ways.
Kerry Diamond:
You are a native of Las Vegas. What was your childhood like?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
I am a second generation Las Vegan, which is very, very rare. Definitely a city of transplants. I have two baby boys, well I say they're babies, they're four and six, that are now third generation Las Vegans. So both my parents were born in Las Vegas. My childhood was very modest. I really wasn't allowed to go to the Las Vegas Strip except for one time a year on my birthday, but I really enjoyed the outdoors. A lot of people don't realize all of just the natural wonders we have and the beauty of the desert. So I spent a lot of my childhood in the desert, lots of hiking and camping, but I was always attracted to the glamour of the Las Vegas Strip especially because I wasn't allowed to go and experience it.
Kerry Diamond:
So interesting. So you had these two worlds, this very natural world, and then this almost magical city dropped in the desert. Must have been very interesting as a kid.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Definitely. And I've always loved dichotomies like that. I liked a little bit of decompartmentalization, and having these different tabs to click in between, and it probably started very much as a child.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about your love of chemistry. What drew you to that subject at a young age?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
I definitely just love science. I love the science of life, and I think it's just my curiosity, trying to reconcile and figure out how things are working. So I feel like over my life I've taken different forums of science that have been fascinating to me. My current more chosen field I say is alchemy. It's mixing all of these different flavors, ingredients, and building flavor block by block and experiences through that way. But I've loved trying to figure out how things work and having some type of understanding of it. My career, I started off with cocktails. When journalists started writing about me in competitions, they called me Miss Wizard was my competing nickname, because I liked molecular mixology and doing different edible formats and foams and experiences.
Kerry Diamond:
People like to give you nicknames, Mariena, one of your early nicknames was the Tequila Goddess.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
It was.
Kerry Diamond:
If I heard that correctly.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
It was, and it was a job as well.
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, that was your job title, not just a nickname?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
It was a business card job title. Only in Las Vegas. My first job in spirits was Tequila Goddess. I went and got a job and it was as a hostess in a fine dining steakhouse, and I didn't grow up going to restaurants, lived very modestly, so I was enamored by the culinary scene, especially wine and spirits. So as I was turning 21, I had beverage directors from a different property that would come over, and I would go up as a curious kid and ask a million questions. So they actually created this job for me called Tequila Goddess, and they asked me, they knew I was turning 21 and said, "Do you want to become a tequila goddess?"
And I said, "I don't know. Let me go home and ask my mom if I can do this." So I went home and asked my mom and she said no. So I went and told them absolutely I'm going to do this. And I got on a plane and then flew out to the town of Tequila right after my 21st birthday and got to spend a lot of time living and working in different distilleries. And to date myself, that was 20 years ago. So tequila really was nascent and burgeoning, especially in the United States. So it was just a really great time to get part of that.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's jump to your time at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, which is when a lot of the food and drink world first learned about you. How did you wind up at the Cosmopolitan?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
So I had been making a name for myself, cutting my teeth in mixology competitions around the city, and then I started doing some national ones and global ones. So really the creators of the program at the Cosmopolitan had heard about me, and they approached me and asked me to create a mixology program, and this was 15 years ago in Las Vegas. So that really didn't exist at the time. I said absolutely, and signed on, and I want to say I oversaw 24 menus over there, but really helped usher in Las Vegas into the era of mixology and craft cocktails. There was this great things obviously going on in New York and these craft cocktail bars in San Francisco and L.A., but I really wanted to take that craft cocktail experience and democratize it across this huge property in all of these different outlets and venues, and really make this bar crawl, incredible bar crawl across the property. So that was really where my career started, I would say.
Kerry Diamond:
Were you there from the opening?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
I was. I was.
Kerry Diamond:
So you had to create this entire program from scratch.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Correct.
Kerry Diamond:
It wasn't like you took over and the place had been open already?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Correct, and that was really just one of the pinnacles of my career, because innovation makes you very vulnerable, but if you can harness that, I feel like I did, and really was able to do things that I had never even dreamed that I could do in such a large way.
Kerry Diamond:
What do you mean that innovation makes you vulnerable?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
When you're on this unique path that has not been forged for you, it can be a little scary, and you have to be intrepid in your goal and your vision, and sometimes you have to fight for it, and I think that makes you very vulnerable. And then what if you fail, and you fail in a huge way, in a public way, or you disappoint that sensitive pisces in me, but I'm always attuned to those kind of pressures.
Kerry Diamond:
You became famous at the Cosmopolitan for a certain drink. Tell us about it.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Yes, it is called the Verbena, and when I was opening the Cosmopolitan, I was also the GM of the Chandelier Bar, which is this three-story chandelier with three different menus on it. And I had a cocktail called the Verbena that I had on the opening menu. It was a margarita with this beautiful lemon verbena herb and aromas, but really the magical part of it was the garnish. It's called a buzz button. A buzz button is a natural alkaloid that speeds up your salivary glands and turns you into what's called a super taster. As we know, a super taster is a real phenomena of people that have more densely packed taste buds than others, so they taste at a higher intensity. But when you eat this flower, it's this unreal reaction on your tongue. Your tongue starts tingling. They call it nature's pop rocks, but it's very different.
It's not topical. Your whole tongue is just tingling, and then as you sip your cocktail, you get different nuances and flavor. It's like a rollercoaster and a journey of flavor. I was trying to do very seasonal menus at the time, so within the first three months, lemon Verbena had gone out of season, so I took the cocktail off the menu and I thought people were going to riot at my house. They were so mad. What had I done? So I took the cocktail and we took out the lemon Verbena and kept everything else the same and we left it off the menu and I was like, people get over it and find something new.
And it really had the adverse effect where it became this cult following of if you go to Las Vegas, this is what you have to try. And I mean, I don't know, seven years ago there was over 20 million right now, at least in sales, and it's not on any menu. So it's all word of mouth that people come in for this experience, and it's to the point that if I sit on a plane and I say that I worked at the Cosmopolitan, before I say what I did, they're like, "Have you ever had that drink?" And people don't know its name because it's not in print. So it becomes even like "Have you had the face melter?" It's insane names for it. So it really is one of the highlights of my career, for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell me a little bit more about the buzz button. I've never tried those. It sounds a little similar to the effect a Sichuan peppercorn has on your mouth.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Correct. They have the shared alkaloid called spilanthol. The name of the plant that the buzz button comes on is the Sichuan flower, but they're not the same plant as the Sichuan peppercorn. They were just named because of the shared property for it. But it's these little flowers that you eat, and it's like the Sichuan peppercorn times a thousand. It really is such an unreal feeling.
Kerry Diamond:
Now you took it to the next level and created something called Electric Dust.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about that.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
So that is my passion project. During the pandemic, Las Vegas closed down. We were very vulnerable because we're tourism, right? So I was like, I had all this creative energy in me, and I don't really like to sit still. So I took that flower and I said, "What can I do with this?" And I saw that no one was really doing anything besides using it fresh. So I created a process to make a shelf stable, and my husband and I, we actually wrote and filed our own patent on it. So we're patent pending on the process, but I created into this dust. And then I like beautiful things as well. There's different hues to it. We have blue and we have gold, and then there's an iridescence and a flavor to it. With that, I created this process of these spritzing the side of a glass, and then these dusting ones where you shake this beautiful dust on, and then you can lick the side of your glass, your tongue will start tingling and it takes you on that flavor journey.
I wanted to take that fresh flower that was lucrative and harder to get for people and really, again, democratizing and get it into everybody's hands. And since then, it's been an amazing journey. We have a few different products. I do a custom line for different theme parks, cruises. We have this Electric Dust Fire, which was an innovation I did after visiting Macau and having real Sichuan cuisine. And then I created also a line of edible glitters that don't have the buzz button now. I was doing some custom products for some bigger theme parks who were asking for things, and whenever they'd come to me and like, "Hey, do you do this? Yes, I do." And I just go figure it out, so I have ube glitter and pandan glitter, and all these different kind of ancillary cocktail items now.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so much fun. Tell us exactly what it does to your palate. Does it change what you're tasting or does it heighten what you're tasting?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
It heightens what you're tasting, but over a period of time. So basically the tingling you're feeling is your salivary glands all coming alive at the same time. So as you are eating or drinking anything alongside it, you're tasting different nuances and flavors because your senses have been heightened for that short amount of time. Sensitivities are different with it just because we all have a different amount of salivary glands on our tongues.
Kerry Diamond:
And have you worked with the chefs to come up with some bites to go with it? Because I would imagine it impacts the food you're eating and snacking on as well.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Definitely. We were doing a lot of things with chefs, charcuterie boards. We have our electric pops, which are rock candy lollipops coated in the dust, and they were being served as accoutrements with charcuterie. I love working with anything creamy, like different cheeses. Your tongue is tingling, your salivary glands are going insane, and then the cheese almost has this coating to it. It's a really interesting experience.
Kerry Diamond:
Cheese and cocktails, two of my favorite things. Okay, So folks want to check out Electric Dust. They can go to electricdust.shop and see all your products and learn a little bit more about you. You've also created your own edible fragrances. How did you get into that?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
So you have millions of olfactory receptors, but thousands of taste buds. And I always say that I'm fascinated by the science of deliciousness. That's my daily goal, is how do I figure out how to make things really delicious? I'm also very envious of chefs, because they can create a journey through plating and textures and where you can pick up different things and layer it yourself. With cocktails, it's just an amorphous liquid, so you're hoping it all hits at the same and you're building in flavors. But I always like to give different layers and pique different senses to create this unique multisensory experience with the cocktail. So when I was actually pregnant with my son, I could smell, I would walk down a grocery store aisle and I could smell brownies in a box. My sense of smell was heightened, so I became very fascinated walking through a Japanese tea garden, drinking different, I'd have three cups of tea, because I'd want to smell the flowers and see how they were interacting with the tea.
So I became very fascinated with aromas. And we were opening at the Wynn Overlook aperitifs and cocktail lounge, and I was working with different styles of aperitifs, and I really wanted to add an extra layer of glamour. So I designed what I'm calling torre perfumes. So there are a few different perfumes that were inspired by iconic places. There's Amalfi that has the bounty of citrus from the Amalfi Coast, which works really well with an aperol spritz of spritzing that on top. But my favorite would probably be Milan. I was thinking, "What does fashion week smell like? What does a supermodel smell like?" And I thought vanilla, maybe some fancy fragrances and hair products. But then I was like, "Maybe a cheeky cigarette are here too." So then I put some Mezcal for some smoke in it, but really built aromas by layers to be indicative of these different places.
Kerry Diamond:
And you spritz them on the glasses? Is that how it works?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Correct. And it will just waft on top of the cocktail, and they're in these beautiful goblets of scents. So when you get your face up to it, you really get that beautiful aroma. And again, that's empowering you to taste in layers, because first you're getting the aroma, then you're getting it reinforced with the flavor.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to wear these fragrances too, Mariena. Have you thought about that?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
I have people at the lounges that want to spray them on themselves. To each their own.
Kerry Diamond:
Today you are the official mixologist for the Wynn. You are responsible for every drink, right? Cocktails, mocktails, even smoothies and coffee. Did I get that right?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Yes. Currently, at Wynn Las Vegas. I think it's 34 menus now. But again, it's spirited cocktails, non-alcoholic, coffee, tea, and the Wynn is... We have so many different outlets of different styles that it's just this endless well of inspiration. But when they came to me and you know Tom, "We're going to partner with Tom Brady and do some smoothies, do you want to work with us?" I was like, "Absolutely." So it's been really cool to expand in that way.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you keep track of everything? Do you have a million spreadsheets?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
I have a million spreadsheets, a million tabs in my brain at all times. I have portmanteaus. Portmanteau is sleepiphanies, so epiphanies in your sleep. So I do have a notebook by my bed where I jot stuff down all the time. But I have 34 menus at Wynn, Las Vegas. But then I also work with Encore Boston Harbor, and in the last year I've been working with our two properties out in Macau as well, and traveling out to do cocktails there. So it's been an incredible experience.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk a little bit more about the Wynn in Las Vegas. It's really not like any other place on the strip. I was very fortunate to visit and see you and some other folks on the site. It has a very feminine feel, and it's very “Alice in Wonderland,” which I wasn't expecting.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
I love it. I was always very inspired by “Alice in Wonderland” as a child. I like that wonder and whimsy. The Wynn is artistry at just such a different level. There's so many details. You can just get lost in these rabbit holes of details and art, and when you're sensitive and attuned to it, you really appreciate it. So that's probably why you notice all the little Easter eggs and beautiful things that come together for this symphony of excellence. Yes, it's definitely a wonderful place.
Kerry Diamond:
I actually thought it would be really fun to get an art tour of the space. I'm sure there are folks who've asked for that before, but there's just art everywhere. It's incredible. What was your mandate when they hired you? What did they tell you?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
I was fortunate enough to work for 12 years, at the time, in a public way at Cosmopolitan. So everyone knew my vibe and knew what I was capable and responsible and passionate about. I was very fortunate, you talk about a lot of female energy there. My vice president of food and beverage, Helena Nieves, she had known about my career, was excited to have me, and really just advocated me writing my own role. So I didn't really get a mandate. I was taken on as a consultant initially, and I had just started my company. But yeah, they just said, "Do you, and we're excited to have you. And we're just incredibly supportive. We have just such strong leadership in general." But there's a lot of very strong female leaders at the Wynn that have made me comfortable and definitely advocated for me.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, there are so many incredible women there. You mentioned Helena, there's also Elizabeth Blau who has done so much for women in Las Vegas and beyond in the hospitality industry. You've got Jen Yee, the pastry chef, Sarah Thompson, who's the chef at Casa Playa, who I got to meet as well. What's it like collaborating and working with all these incredible women?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
It's a dream come true. It really is. I don't know how else to describe it. They're so powerful and so amazing at each one of their crafts, that it's inspiring. I call it our super group. It's inspiring to have this dense concentration of talent that's all there to uplift each other and collaborate and work with each other like what Elizabeth has done for, like you said, just not only the city, but just with her Women's Hospitality Initiative. Jen Yee is incredibly creative and everything she does is so beautiful and delicious. Chef Sarah is just, she's a force in the kitchen and just so innovative. It really is amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
I know this will be hard to narrow it down to three, but can you walk us through three of your favorite cocktails at the Wynn? I'd love to know the creation process and the ingredients.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
It is always hard to pick a favorite child, and I get so hyper tuned into whatever I'm doing at that specific time. I'm like a method actor that if I am in a menu, I am making the cuisine, I am studying architecture, and literature, and the ingredients, and theology of that certain region. I think if I had to pick one that gets a lot of attention and I do love it would be the Monaco. And it's a spritz based cocktail at Aft Cocktail Deck. And that is, again, the probably, I think, the most magical place at the Wynn. It's called the Lake of Dreams for a reason. It's this beautiful waterfall where this magical show happens nightly, just randomly, astronauts coming off a wire and... Did you see it when you were there?
Kerry Diamond:
No. I saw it during the day. I thought it was this water entertainment. I didn't realize there were performers and things like that.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
It transforms at night and it truly is magical. So Aft Cocktail Deck is designed to look like a luxury yacht out there. So each cocktail is named after a destination. This one is Monaco. It's this goblet glass, and it's dusted with my blue electric dust. The flavors, it's like a lemon basil, vodka, elderflower, lemongrass ginger, cardamom, gastrique, and then Rosé champagne. And then it has a little bit of a butterfly pea tisane on top. Butterfly pea is a very popular flower right now. It's a flower from Thailand that has that very low pH balance. So whenever it hits anything highly acidic, it does that color change.
So it starts off that blue and it goes to purple to pink. So has its mixing in this beautiful cocktail with the blue iridescence down the side, and then it's got flower confetti on top. It creates this really cool experience when the show is going between the audio and the visual. It's like trippy music and these things coming out of the water and the sky. And what I love to do, which is multisensory experiences, everything is coming together and creating this memory that you will always return to. I like nostalgia for that. I like hitting that well and creating those experiences. So Monaco was number one.
Kerry Diamond:
So wait, should I go to Aft and then go to Casa Playa? What order should I do my night at the Wynn in?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
I would say Casa Playa first. You want sun down and especially in the summer Las Vegas, sun goes down a little bit later, so have it after your meal, the sun will be down and then the Lake of Dreams will be active.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, that's my plan. Tell us another cocktail.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Probably the Kylie at Delilah. It's just gotten a lot of attention. When I came onto the property, impetus for my position was we were opening Delilah, which is this supper club that has roots out of LA, and is incredibly popular with a celebrity clientele, but it's just really just the most beautiful room I've ever seen. It was designed by our chief creative officer, Todd Avery Lenahan, and every corner is this Easter egg of design and just glamour. I walked to the room and I thought, "How do I capture this in a cocktail?" And I happened to just, it was post-pandemic, but we were just opening up. There wasn't people coming through there, so I was like the Goldilocks of Delilah.
I was there by myself, and no one was ever in the room. And then one day Kylie Jenner walks through, is taking a tour, and I had created this beautiful clarified cocktail, which I love clarifying cocktails because I love the science behind it. Basically you take anything, it could be any color, a highly acidic base, and then you pour milk in it, which sounds terrible, and then you pull the curds off with it. But what happens, it removes all of the pigment from it. It's a very slow and laborious process, removes all the pigment so it's clear, but with it takes all of the tannins as well. So everything is silky smooth. It's unlike anything you've ever tasted.
So it's beautiful, silky smooth like stunner cocktail, and I see it more on Instagram now, but I feel like I was one of the creators or in the forefront of doing it, of using what I was calling an edible glue and hand-applying these flower petals, these micro flowers up the side of the glass. I was very inspired by Art Deco and trying to create a stained-glass look, a bleak up the side. So she just had this perfect timing of coming through when I was making this cocktail. And then someone was like, I think it was actually Elizabeth Blau was like, "You should name this after her." And it was all this serendipitous kismet, which I love these happy accidents that come together. But it's this beautiful cocktail and it's gotten a lot of press, and people enjoy it, and it's in a beautiful space. So number two, Kylie.
Kerry Diamond:
What should I order from Casa Playa?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Casa Playa, I would go for the Obsidian. It's inspired by obsidian, the naturally occurring black mineral in agave fields. So it's used a lot in jewelry, the black obsidian. It's black salt on the outside of the glass, an homage to that. And then it is a spicy cucumber margarita, which is a little bit more basic of a flavor profile these days, but it's just really well done, really well-balanced, and works really well with Chef Sarah's food.
Kerry Diamond:
These all sound amazing and give everyone some insight into just how creative you truly are. Want to talk about some cocktail trends, probably your least favorite subject. Every mixologist I talked to said that the espresso martini is by far the most popular cocktail in all of Las Vegas. Would you agree?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
It's on fire right now. I know worldwide it's gotten a lot of, I mean, it's everywhere. It's very popular everywhere, but Las Vegas, it's very conducive to Las Vegas. It's a 24-hour city. People are looking to drink at different times of the day and night, and maybe recover from the pools. You're getting your energy and your booze at the same time, but they're delicious as well.
Kerry Diamond:
They are. I had my very first one when I was in Vegas the other week.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Your first one?
Kerry Diamond:
My first one. I had never had an espresso martini before. I know, hard to believe, but no longer an espresso martini virgin. Aperol spritz has also taken over the world. Has that happened in Vegas?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
It has. It's popular, and it definitely have some plays. When I was opening Cosmopolitan, I was doing market research and global trends, and aperol spritz, 15 years ago, was the world's best-selling cocktail. And then no one in America was drinking it at the time. And it's so delicious, and it's really great for aperitivo hour and the romance of drinking these low ABV cocktails over a duration of time, and really more about enjoying the company you're with. So I'm really happy to see that it's getting more attention and traction.
Kerry Diamond:
Mariena, I want to talk to you about something serious, and thank you in advance for talking to us about this. You told the Las Vegas weekly recently that you quit drinking seven years ago. I'm curious, what led to that decision?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
So yes, I work in the spirits industry obviously, and I experiment with cocktails all day. Probably the impetus for not drinking was getting married, and my husband and I had started talking about a family and planning a family. And then when I got pregnant, I was pregnant and then I was breastfeeding and then I was pregnant and I was breastfeeding, and that was four years of my life. And then from there, I just really found, for me personally, that I was just my best self at that and I really enjoyed it, so I just stuck with it. My husband, when I stopped, he stopped as well. We found other passions to pursue together. I absolutely adore cooking, I love playing with flavor at home, because I always get bored if I'm not pursuing that kind of passion. So cooking and baking and all that kind of stuff.
So I still pursue flavor just in a different way or non-alcoholic drinks. It confuses people in my industry. Sometimes you do see a lot more mixologists not drinking, but I do taste my cocktails when I create them in just little sips. I just don't recreationally drink. And obviously my tolerance is a lot lower. I still love the industry, all of the spirits, flavors, all of that. It just doesn't really fit into my lifestyle anymore. Again, to talk about being vulnerable, when I became pregnant, I didn't taste any of the drinks I was making and I was creating for over 20 different venues. And it was terrifying to me, but it made me be vulnerable to rely on how I knew flavors tasted and affinities for each other. So I created a style where I draw out a lot of my cocktails and I go block by block of flavor and then just layer on the flavors. And I've really created almost like a rolodex of flavors in how they work, but definitely it makes me more creative, in a way, to rely on that.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you for sharing that with us. I would imagine it also gives you an interesting perspective on the mocktail trend.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Absolutely. I'm personally vested in it.
Kerry Diamond:
I was happy to see mocktails on the menu of literally every restaurant and bar I went to in Las Vegas. What's your approach to mocktails? You might not even like the term mocktail, no one was using that term on their menus, but what's your approach to that at the Wynn, and what's your preferred term?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
I am super open to all of them. I call that zero proof. It just feels like it has a little bit more, I don't know, gravitas to it. But I want people, for whatever reason that they're abstaining, maybe it's just they're having one on one off, whatever the reason is to feel like they're still included in the experience, and that it's still thoughtful. So each different menu that I create for, again, I go down to the thematic of the room and ingredients and the story I'm trying to tell with each one of my cocktails, and I do the same with the zero proof. So it really depends. There's zero proof aperol spritz in our Italian based restaurants, or zero proof palomas. Mostly I just don't want to pick glass of sugar. A lot of times it was like an afterthought of juice. So I want them to be nuanced and flavorful.
Kerry Diamond:
Is there a zero proof drink that you're particularly proud of at the Wynn?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
I would say right now out at the pool, calling it spa day, and it's a play on the porn star martini, which is another cocktail that's very popular. It came out of the...
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, finish telling us about that one then you have to tell us about the porn star martini.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
I'll go into the porn star a little bit just because I'll talk about flavor base with it. But the porn star martini is a cocktail that was created in the U.K. in the early 2000s, I think. And it is passion fruit, vanilla vodka, and then usually a shot of champagne on the side. And so I've seen it all over menus across the United States. So I took something that is a pretty alcoholic drink and dissected in a way. So there's notes of Madagascar vanilla, passion fruit. Have you had the Lyre's non-alcoholic sparkling?
Kerry Diamond:
I love the Lyre's products.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Their non-alcoholic sparkling is like the champagne adjacent, and it tastes like champagne. It's amazing. So I put that in it instead of the shot on the side. So it's almost like a hybrid, almost like spritz of sorts. And then I put these little passion fruit pearls and persimmon in it. I love the passion fruit pearls. They're like the bursting ones, because they float to the bottom, and as you sip, you get this burst of passion fruit and texture.
Kerry Diamond:
So it's a very sophisticated boba.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Exactly.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, that sounds like fun. I definitely want to try that. Okay. Lastly, I want to talk about Vegas just a little bit. You have seen the city change a lot because you've had a unique perspective as a native. What excites you the most about what's going on there these days?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
So the bar and culinary scene is just on fire across the city, but I really am excited to see what's happening off strip with that, with all these amazing restaurants opening up and craft cocktail bars. That's exciting. And then I think a lot of people would gripe, maybe before the 2000s, but the lack of culture or art, so it's really great to see the arts district as flourishing and all museums and live venues for music and things that are more for the city and not just specifically for tourism. Yeah, that's exciting to see.
Kerry Diamond:
I didn't even know about the arts district. A friend and Cherry Bombe contributor Chala June actually DM'd me and she said, "You have to go to the arts district." So when I'm back in a few weeks, I'm definitely putting that on my list of things to see.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Check out Velveteen Rabbit, it's an incredible bar in the arts district.
Kerry Diamond:
And give us a restaurant recommendation. We talked a lot about the Wynn, so give me a non Wynn restaurant recommendation.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
There is a chef in the city, Chef Gina Marinelli, and she's incredibly talented. We work together at the Cosmopolitan. I love collaborating with her, and she's just such a force. She has two spots in town, and one of them is pretty conveniently close to my house, called La Strega, and it's definitely an industry hangout, coastal and Italian. Just a lot of really creative stuff, and she's just inspirational.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's great. Okay, adding that to my list. I've got a long list. On Radio Cherry Bombe, our last question is always, if you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why? But I'm going to say, if you had to pick one food celebrity to spend a fun night with on the strip, who would it be and why?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
That's a tough one. But I would say Molly Yeh. There's a wholesomeness I love about her, but at the same time, she also has a penchant for mischief, and I like the way she hides it in her recipes, and everything seems very much from a story. It's also very authentic to her heritage. It's very original and unique, which I like. And she just seems really quirky and fun and nerdy, and I like that in a person.
Kerry Diamond:
Have you met Molly?
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
She is one of the nicest people in the world. I would absolutely love to eavesdrop on a conversation between the two of you.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
She also loves glitter and sprinkles, so I feel like we're going to be best friends one day. She's just not aware of it yet.
Kerry Diamond:
Mariena, you are such a special individual. I'm sure our listeners have picked up on that, but I just feel really lucky to have met you in person, and now have had the opportunity to get to know you a little bit better. So I can't thank you enough.
Mariena Mercer Boarini:
Thank you for chatting with me again.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. I would love for you to subscribe to Radio Cherry Bombe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and leave a rating and a review. Thank you again to Las Vegas for supporting our show. Learn more about Las Vegas and plan your trip at visitlasvegas.com/culinary. You can find the link in our show notes. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Elizabeth Vogt. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our content operations manager is Londyn Crenshaw. Special thanks to Sticky Paws Studios in Las Vegas and to CityVox in New York. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.