Cocktail creator, writer and consultant Sammi Katz and interdisciplinary designer and illustrator Olivia McGiff have created Spirited Women: Makers, Shakers and Trailblazers in the World of Cocktails, a book that shines a light on 55 women who are redefining the spirits industry. From distillers and blenders to mixologists and educators, the guide explores the stories of these inspiring figures and pairs them with an original cocktail that reflects their journeys and contributions. The two profiles of ‘LP’ O’Brien and Louise McGuane below are taken from the book, which was released on 4 March, 2025.
LP O’Brien
Bartender and cocktail consultant
Lauren Paylor ‘LP’ O’Brien is an award-winning Afro-Latina mixologist who looks to provide cultural experiences and build community through cocktails. As an innovative entrepreneur in the beverage space, LP’s main goal has always been to create diverse and inclusive spaces that promote wellness in the industry. And that’s a tricky feat in a business with so much emphasis on drinking and nightlife.
Born in the Bronx, LP moved to Washington, DC, in 2010 to attend nursing school. She became a regular at The Passenger, where she would sit at the bar and do her homework. LP admired how the bartenders interacted with their guests, ‘primarily because they took such great care of me.’ LP loved that the staff took the time to cater the experience to each person at the bar. ‘I always knew that I wanted to connect with people, and that seemed so much more fun than what I was doing at the time,’ she says.
So LP went from hospitals to hospitality. She worked in all facets of the field, and once she knew hospitality was her destiny she wanted to find her rightful place in it – one that let her shine and best served her well-being. ‘How do I take the things that I love so much about this sector and turn it into something that’s sustainable for me, but also something that truly aligns with what I want to do?’ In 2016, she founded LP Drinks, a beverage agency that focuses on curating experiences using cocktails as a canvas. ‘It’s so rewarding to be in a position where I can travel and immerse myself and then bring those experiences to others.’
It’s so rewarding to be in a position where I can travel and immerse myself and then bring those experiences to others
LP’s cocktail creations are about evoking emotions, and she takes all five senses into account. ‘It’s about finding authentic ways to tie all of the elements back into the story I’m telling.’ She created Bodega Culture, a cocktail pop-up that has travelled around the country and celebrates New York bodegas. Not only are the drinks inspired by a bodega, but the space is fully transformed to emulate one. LP makes sure to highlight snacks from BIPOC makers, donating part of the pop-up’s proceeds to an organization that focuses on prison reform.
Furthering her global reach, LP competed on season one of Netflix’s Drink Masters. The reality show featured twelve of North America’s most talented bartenders, and (spoiler alert!) LP took home the main prize. ‘I wanted to go out there, be authentically myself, and hopefully inspire someone along the way,’ she says. One of her skills that really wowed the judges was her ability to make low- and no-alcohol cocktails that felt just as special as their alcoholic counterparts. ‘If you can make a drink that’s delicious with no alcohol, then you can absolutely make a drink with alcohol,’ says LP. ‘It really forces you to have a very good understanding of flavour and texture.’ LP prioritizes health and wellness throughout the hospitality field. For her, that means taking care of herself personally, but also looking out for the people in her orbit. She is honest, intentional, and has a unique ability to always do what’s best for her, which in turn inspires others to do the same. ‘You’re not going to make everyone happy,’ she says, ‘but when we stop caring so much about the noise, the work that we’re able to create can become so much more impactful.’
Louise McGuane
Founder and master bonder of J.J. Corry Irish Whiskey
Imagine being responsible for reviving a piece of your country’s heritage. Louise McGuane can, because that’s exactly what she did. With her company, J.J. Corry, Louise single-handedly recovered the extinct practice of Irish whiskey bonding. As Ireland’s first modern whiskey bonder and the first female founder in the present-day Irish whiskey industry, she is innovative, passionate, and a true leader. ‘I have the opportunity to be a part of an ancient industry that’s reinventing itself, and I’m able to pave my own way,’ she says.
Growing up on a farm in County Clare on the west coast of Ireland, Louise always had a passion for the drinks industry. She pursued a career in the corporate beverage world and worked for large companies like Moët Hennessy and Diageo. Even though her job took her all over the globe, she always kept an eye on the spirits industry in her home country, as well as the booming craft distillation movement in America. ‘I was like, that is going to happen in Ireland,’ says Louise. ‘The whole category of Irish whiskey is about to be reborn, and I want to be a part of that.’
In 2012, Louise left the corporate sphere and moved back to Ireland to spend some time on her family’s farm. Knowing that she would eventually inherit it (‘because the Irish are very weird about land due to our history’), Louise decided she would start her own whiskey company in County Clare. As she was researching the Irish whiskey business, she came across many bottles with labels stating ‘J.J. Corry Whiskey Bonder.’ Not knowing what ‘whiskey bonder’ meant, and not getting answers from anyone in the industry, Louise became a researcher, combing through any and all resources she could get her hands on, including the British and Irish Parliamentary Archives. Eventually, she discovered that the act of whiskey bonding was once an integral part of the Irish whiskey industry.
As the only female founder of an Irish whiskey company, Louise purposely hired a majority-female team to get more women involved in the industry
Whiskey bonding (not to be mistaken with American bottled-in-bond whiskey) is sourcing, maturing, and blending whiskeys from different distilleries to create new blends. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (considered the golden age of Irish whiskey), hundreds of distilleries were operating in Ireland. Most didn’t have their own brands, so they sold their new-make whiskey wholesale to bonders, who would travel to distilleries, fill up their barrels, then take them home to age, blend, and bottle. The entire whiskey industry in Ireland collapsed in the 1930s and the few remaining distilleries cut off the bonders’ supply, so the practice of whiskey bonding died.
That is, until Louise came along nearly a hundred years later, when the Irish whiskey industry was being rebuilt. (Louise’s instinct about her hometown spirit was correct: In 2012, there were only three distilleries in Ireland, but as of 2023, the island is home to over forty distilleries.) Once she learned about whiskey bonding, she knew that was the direction to take. ‘If I’m going to contribute to the rebirth of Irish whiskey in a meaningful way, I’m going to do that because it’s bringing back the heritage,’ says Louise. In 2015, Louise built a rackhouse and blending room on the McGuane family farm and founded J.J. Corry Irish Whiskey.
Louise’s job is basically putting together a giant creative puzzle with lots of moving parts. First, she builds relationships with various distilleries around Ireland to source the liquid. She then works with coopers, wineries, and distilleries around the world and buys their casks. Her first main partnership was with several sherry bodegas in Jerez, Spain, but she also sources bourbon casks from Kentucky, rum casks from the Caribbean, and tequila casks from Jalisco. The casks are then categorized into ‘flavour blocks.’ It’s like the Dewey decimal system of casks: They could be grassy, citrusy, floral, fruity, nutty. ‘You taste the cask and then it tells you what it is, basically,’ she says. By now, Louise can identify which flavour block a cask belongs to just by its smell. ‘I know straight away, I just go, sniff sniff. “Right, got it, okay, you’re over there.”’
The next step is to match the style of the sourced liquid to the cask. ‘You have to figure out, “Okay, distillery X will go well in winery Y casks, so we’ll put those together,”’ Louise says. From there, the liquid is aged in the J.J. Corry rackhouse, and when the whiskey is ready, Louise begins the blending process. ‘I might be blending from eight different distilleries, you know, little bits and pieces in there,’ she explains. ‘The more diverse library of flavours that you have, the more interesting the whiskey is at the end.’ Louise is always experimenting, as is the nature of whiskey bonding, but there are a few core products in the J.J. Corry portfolio: the Gael, the Hanson, and the Flintlock. They’re all distinct but share the same house style of being ‘big and juicy fruit bombs.’
As the only female founder of an Irish whiskey company, Louise purposely hired a majority-female team to get more women involved in the industry. ‘I was very intentional about creating some kind of a pipeline. The way that the industry has evolved is that there is a collegiate atmosphere, but I deal with men exclusively, pretty much,’ says Louise. ‘Somebody has to be at the other end of the spectrum, and right now, that’s me. We have to create that space for women in the industry as a whole.’
Bringing back an entire practice of making whiskey isn’t exactly small potatoes, and Louise received pushback when J.J. Corry first launched. ‘I think in the beginning, people just weren’t buying the concept of it,’ she says. ‘A lot of people thought it was garbage and just a marketing story.’ But Louise wasn’t going to give up. ‘I’ve worked extremely hard to put on a pedestal what modern whiskey bonding means and should mean in the context of the industry.’ She’s certainly succeeded: J.J. Corry has won numerous awards and has earned its place on the shelf in the canon of great Irish whiskeys. ‘Now people believe, you know?’
