Vodka ... With a Twist

Veronica Pekarovic has a new office assistant, which is a big help because her business has such a small staff. Tatiana has been pulling Pekarovic’s faxes for the past hour. She’s also been playing with her blocks.

“She’s my 3-year-old,” says Pekarovic, 37, who runs a vodka company out of her Pacific Palisades home. “She starts school in September and right now I have her around for the month. So I do my work and I play with her.”

Pekarovic named her small company R&A; Imports Inc. after her other children, Reisha, 14, and Alexandra, 11. Tatiana missed out on joining the R&A; letterhead because she was born shortly after the company. But Pekarovic thinks that’s probably just as well.

“Otherwise, it would have spelled RAT,” she says.

At R&A;, business as usual is nothing like the usual liquor business. In an industry that is heavily dominated by men, Pekarovic is making a splash in 25 states--selling 10,000 cases a year of Zone Vodka, her line of wheat vodkas from Italy that are tinged with natural flavors: banana, peach, melon (cantaloupe), tangerine and lemon.

“I think there’s something masculine about liquor and the perception of liquor,” says Pekarovic. “There are one or two other women in the country who own their own brands. But if you were to ask me, would I do it all over again, I’d say, ‘Yes.’ Do I see a problem with a woman entering this industry? Absolutely not.”

Pekarovic’s feminine touch is apparent even before one uncorks a bottle of Zone. The bottle itself is tall and slim with frosted glass, Euro-contemporary in industry parlance, which can only mean one thing to the recycling-minded female consumer--a vase for tomorrow’s flowers.

“I found a bottle similar to it in Italy, a green olive-oil bottle that I had manufactured in a frosted version,” says Pekarovic. “An Italian graphic artist designed the label. I wanted this product to be fun, and when I first started doing tastings, people said, ‘I need to take this bottle home.’ ”

Similarly, Pekarovic’s feminine sensibility prompted her to make Zone’s alcohol content among the lowest in the vodka business.

“Normally, straight vodka is 80 proof. Zone is 50,” or 25% alcohol by volume, Pekarovic said. “As a mother, I feel a sense of responsibility. Someone can comfortably drink a glass of Zone and they’re OK.”

Zone’s low proof has another advantage--it allows the vodka to blend smoothly with the fruit flavors. “Zone is an ultra-premium,” Pekarovic says. “There’s no aftertaste and there’s less taste to the vodka.”

Getting Rave Reviews

in Liquor Trade Press

The liquor trade press has been raving about Zone, which has an average retail price of $15.99 for a 750-milliliter bottle.

“Each aromatic Zone Vodka has a smooth, well-rounded flavor with an impressively long finish for a flavored spirit,” Robert Plotkin wrote in Nightclub & Bar magazine. “The female instincts and perspective are turning out to be winners; demand has strained supply in Southern California. The unmistakable impression is that the women who designed Zone Vodka had fun.”

The drink has been flowing at celebrity events from a recent Columbia TriStar post-Oscar party to various Paramount premieres. And Pekarovic, whose young company has a minimal marketing budget, has been donating Zone to benefits for her pet charities--the American Heart Assn. Tuesday’s Child and the L.A. Opera--and has been getting the word out on her Web site (http//www.zonevodka.com).

“The taste comes through incredibly compared to a higher-proof vodka,” says Robert Thurmer, Paramount’s bar and beverage manager, who has served 20 cases of Zone at special events. “My son was killed by a drunk driver and I’m still in the alcohol business. And I feel darn good knowing it’s a lower proof to hold down intoxications.”

Joanne Olshan, Pekarovic’s lone employee, who helps with everything from marketing to dealing with distributors, says the stylish liquor entrepreneur surprises men in the business. Some women might be intimidated, “but she’s done her homework, so she’s taken seriously,” Olshan says. “Product knowledge is a very powerful thing and we’re competing with some very big brands out there. We’re the new kid on the block, so that’s very important.”

Pekarovic landed in the business through a combination of market savvy and serendipity. Nearly five years ago she sold her telecommunications company, which specialized in serving hotels and hospitals, and found herself with a chunk of capital.

Flavored Vodka Became

Popular in the U.S.

Flavored vodkas have long been a staple of Russian distilleries, which spiked them with the essences of rowanberry and buffalo grass. By the late ‘80s, Absolut of Sweden had turned flavored vodka into an American sensation, introducing versions laced with citrus, pepper and currants. That set the stage for Zone.

“I was at a dinner party in Los Angeles and I tried a similar product, an after-dinner drink, and it stuck in my head,” Pekarovic says. “I thought, ‘Gosh, I wish this was smoother, and something you could drink all night long.’ ”

On a trip to northern Italy with friends, Pekarovic began scoping out distilleries. “People say, ‘Vodka from Italy?’ Italy makes a lot of vodka and actually sells a lot of it to Russia. I came back to the United States and said, ‘I’m going to do this.’ There was a martini craze coming in, and I did my research,” she says. “I went to the library, made phone calls and had a lot of distilleries in Italy submit samples. I wanted a product you would drink and think you were biting into fruit.”

Pekarovic found the perfect vodka at a distillery in the northern Italian town of Padova, known for its grappa, and ordered a sample shipment of the melon flavor. It arrived when she was eight months pregnant with Tatiana, but she still began knocking on distributors’ doors.

Pekarovic finds that different Zone flavors appeal to men and women.

“Women tend toward peach and melon, and the men tend toward banana and tangerine. I think men like tangerine because it’s more citrus and correlates with cognac or scotch.”