UNTIL THE 1960S, MANY STATES DID not permit a woman without a male escort to sit at a bar, never mind take her seriously as a spirits aficionado. Ironically, women are credited with fermenting grains into beer thousands of years ago, a woman in ancient Egypt is believed to have created the first alembic (pot) still, and the wife of an early Chinese emperor is said to have been the first person to create a distillate from rice.
The topic of women in the liquor industry is one near to my heart because back in 2006, I was one of the few women blogging about mixology. As interest grew, some misguided liquor companies sent me samples of cloying swill with cringeworthy marketing materials stating, “It’s
