HERE’S one way to introduce a new cocktail: hire a stripper to take a bath in a giant replica of it.

A drink named for Dita von Teese.
What Not to Wear to a Cocktail Party
That’s the latest gambit from Cointreau, the French liqueur distiller, which recently was host to a party featuring the company’s new spokesmodel, the retro-glam burlesque performer (and former wife of Marilyn Manson) Dita von Teese, splashing around in her skivvies inside a jumbo cocktail glass.

“Cointreau is a brand that’s 160 years old,” said Stéphanie Fasquelle, the company’s marketing director. “It needed to be refreshed. We have a claim: ‘Be Cointreauversial.’ Dita represents that. This is a brand that’s especially appreciated by women, and Dita is very aspirational for women.”

At the party, held at the cavernous Angel Orensanz Foundation on the Lower East Side, bartenders in black Willy Wonka top hats rattled shakers while the crowd awaited Miss von Teese’s performance.

The crowd was a downtown mix, with young men sporting felt fedoras, bow ties and eyeliner. A wiry, raccoon-eyed young woman passed through the crowd wearing a brown tank top emblazoned with a rudely worded question about the identity of the indie rocker Stephen Malkmus. “RuPaul is here,” someone announced. “As a man!”

Then Miss von Teese took the stage, emerging from a bottle-shaped cutout in the rear wall of the stage and dressed in an orange costume that was bedecked with 350,000 Swarovski crystals. The dress was said to weigh 75 pounds; no wonder Miss von Teese wanted to ditch it.

She waved an orange boa, which resembled a giant sea anemone, while a pert mime collected the falling portions of her costume. Then she lowered herself into a revolving cocktail-glass-shaped vat of purple liquid, where she kicked and sploshed before servers arrived bearing the Cointreau Teese, Miss von Teese’s new signature cocktail, on trays.

The drink — a mixture of Cointreau, apple and lemon juice and violet syrup, and presently available at the Lower East Side restaurant Rayuela — is said to have been painstakingly tailored to Miss von Teese’s tastes. My suspicion: Miss von Teese has a thing for Choward’s violet mints, those purple candies sold in New York delis, because that’s what the drink evokes.

“It’s a little sweet, but pretty good,” said Whitney Spaner, 26, an editor at Paper magazine, as she took her first sips. She was unfamiliar with Choward’s mints. “I like the violet flower floating in there. I think a lot of violet drinks are coming out. I’ve seen three of them in the last few weeks.”

Perhaps Miss Fasquelle is correct, however, about the appeal of Miss von Teese’s drink tilting toward women. Bobby Manley, 23, paused for a long while after being asked his opinion of the drink. “The liquid that Dita bathed in?” he finally said. “I’d rather drink that.”

COINTREAU TEESE

1 ½ ounces Cointreau

¾ ounce apple juice

½ ounce Monin Violet syrup

½ ounce fresh lemon juice

Slice of ginger.

Rub the edge of a chilled martini glass with the ginger slice, then discard the ginger. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well, and strain into the glass.