(Tribune News Service) — In 2006, celebrity chef Bobby Flay traveled to a Mojave Desert military base to compete against Marine Corps Maj. Eric Dominijanni under the 110-degree sun. After winning a steak-grilling contest against Flay, Dominijanni — a home chef from New York — thought his dreams were coming true. He envisioned a post-military career in the culinary world.

But life had other plans. After retiring in 2017, Dominijanni began blending scotch in his kitchen and, with the help of an old friend from college, created a liquor product and became a brand founder instead.

Dominijanni, a 52-year-old Kendall resident, is the founder of Fior, the only scotch in America that is both Black-owned and U.S. veteran-owned. What started out as a private batch of liquor to enjoy with his Marine friends has since become a full-fledged business.

Fior is now available online and in more than 90 stores nationwide and will be sold in Florida stores by 2025, according to Dominijanni. His business partner — his college friend James Landis — has had a long career in the spirits industry and was one of the founders of Hpnotiq liquor before the brand was sold in 2003.

Although Dominijanni frequently heard from other Black liquor enthusiasts that Black people don’t appreciate scotch, Landis was quick to emphasize that many Black people “didn’t drink tequila until Patrón came along.”

Landis believes that with a product as good as Fior, people who have not traditionally enjoyed scotch will give it a chance.

“Eric crafted something that I think is going to have universal acceptance,” he said. “This can be enjoyed by a spectrum of people.”

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Dominijanni was raised in Queens. After graduating from high school in 1990, he majored in pre-med at New York University. It was there that he befriended Landis, a fellow pre-med major. The two often hung out on Thursdays, the popular night for NYU students to go out. Neither ended up going into medicine.

“Eric went into the military, and I went into the booze industry,” Landis said.

In 1997, Dominijanni joined the Marine Corps and served for 20 years before retiring out of Southern Command in Doral.

It was on a trip to California in 2013 that Dominijanni was exposed to scotch for the first time. While in between deployments, he was out with friends when he asked for a rum drink at a bar. The bartender informed Dominijanni that he was actually in a scotch bar and began to teach Dominijanni about the different varieties.

Dominijanni already had a habit of making his own ice cream, sausage and beer at home, and after he returned from California, he began making his own house blend of scotch. From there, his fascination grew.

When Dominijanni retired in 2017, he had a realization: He knew he didn’t want to work for anyone again. He said he had made good financial decisions and investments during his Marine career. He just wasn’t sure what was next.

What eventually became Fior started out as a bottle for Dominijanni and his Marine buddies to enjoy when he had them over. “It was never intended to leave the house,” he said.

His friends, however, were relentless. They wouldn’t stop telling Dominijanni he had a good thing on his hands, and eventually, he got an idea to launch his own scotch brand.

Creating his own brand of liquor used many of the same skills he used as a home chef but in a different way. Once he had a high level of confidence in his scotch blend, Dominijanni reached out to his longtime friend Landis.

Dominijanni had a single bottle of his scotch blend and, knowing his friend’s background, asked if Landis could find a way to reverse engineer it and make it at scale.

“I knew scotch geniuses in Scotland and sent it to people I know that have palettes beyond what I could comprehend,” Landis said.

Landis’ contacts were able to develop three samples for commercial production using Dominijanni’s home recipe. While the first sample was only okay at best and the third sample didn’t taste great, the second appealed to Dominijanni’s taste.

Landis soon asked if he could market the scotch, and the two men became business partners. But launching the business presented one particular challenge: Dominijanni didn’t know what to call his product.

It was Landis who suggested Fior, explaining that it was the Italian word for flower and also the Scottish Gaelic word for pure, clean and true. Dominijanni knew he had something, and the two men went to work. The product was officially launched in 2021.

Dominijanni said the leadership skills he gained as a Marine Corps officer have helped him in delegating tasks and leading a team of six employees.

“In any business you need leadership and management. In any business, if you don’t have that, you will fail. You need to learn how to delineate tasks,” he said.

Seven years after retiring, he’s grateful that his unlikely pivot as an entrepreneur has allowed him to succeed in a way he never imagined.

“You have to learn to make something that everyone will appreciate,” he said.

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