She Built a Cult Apéritif and a Life to Match
Inside Ghia founder Melanie Masarin’s world of beautiful rituals, coastal escapes, and the in-between moments that shape it all. Plus, win some Ghia and a signed copy of her new cookbook!
It’s hard to keep track of Melanie Masarin.
If you were to check her wildly popular feeds — Instagram or Night Shade, here on Substack, where her loyal subscribers and followers track her moves and inhale her recommendations — Melanie could be anywhere. Maybe she’s adding more “bits and bops” to her sunlit Paris apartment in the 10th arrondissement, inadvertently hosting her own birthday flower workshop at her New York place in Tribeca, or off catching the surf in Costa Rica, where she often goes to recharge, a board bouncing at her side while navigating a dune buggy to the beach.
The French femme, who just turned 35, is also the founder and CEO of the groundbreaking spirit-free beverage company, Ghia — and she’s about to publish a cookbook, Riviera: Recipes from the Coast of France and Italy, featuring tastes from some of her other happy places inspired by her upbringing.
Also, get this: Before founding Ghia in 2020 (in the middle of the pandemic, I might add), Melanie worked in finance for Goldman Sachs, in retail for American Eagle Outfitters, F&B at Dig Inn, and beauty for Glossier. I mean, that’s an impressive amount of life packed into a little over three decades, with diverse and multidisciplinary career pivots to boot!
Born in Lyon, France, to a French mother and Italian father, this multi-hypenate, who admits to moving through life very fast, strives to maintain a sense of calm through what she calls ‘transition moments.’
“A small ritual like pouring something, changing rooms, or changing clothes helps signal that you’re entering a new chapter of the day,” Melanie says.
She crafted Ghia as a balm to those moments instead of reaching for the boozier versions she grew up around during Mediterranean summers: “Ghia is a transition drink. It marks a shift — from work to dinner, from one city to the coast of Italy, from being ‘on’ to being yourself again.”
While I only recently began circling Melanie’s orbit, we share a taste for how we travel (more on that next week!), a love for the Stockholm-based fashion brand Toteme and Viltier jewelry, and of course Ghia, which has been my go-to non-alcoholic drink since its 2020 launch with the chicest bottle this design junky ever did see!
Speaking of…
Win a Ghia gift pack and a signed copy of ‘Riviera’ by liking this post, restacking it, and tagging me, Alisa Greenspan. Paid subscribers get 10x the entries. Deadline to enter 4/20/26. Check Substack Notes and my April editor’s letter on 4/23 for the winner!
What’s on your moodboard?
A house by the sea.
My man.
A bambino picking tomatoes in the garden.
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Who are the favorite under-the-radar creatives that you wish more people knew about?
This could be its own newsletter!
