For as long as distilling and cocktail bartending have been male-dominated industries, women have been disrupting the status quo. In the past three decades, women in New York City cocktail bars and distilleries have continued to do so while also taking care to create lasting legacies that help empower future generations of spirits professionals. We talked to six forward-thinking women in the field—bar owners, authors, innovators—as they shared what motivates them, discussed their connections to each other in this ever-growing community and gave their recommendations of industry up-and-comers to support this and every month.
Julie Reiner
Julie Reiner
Co-owner of Clover Club, Milady’s and Leyenda
Since her early days at the Flatiron Lounge and Pegu Club (both now shuttered), Julie Reiner has helped lead New York City’s bartending industry into what it is today—especially for women behind the bar.
“It’s always been a boys’ club, the world of spirits and cocktails and bars, so anywhere I can give women, people of color and LGBTQ+ more opportunities—I’m always trying to lift those communities,” says Reiner.
Three decades in, Reiner has amassed a number of accolades. She’s known for creating forward-thinking and inclusive atmospheric bars and cocktails and for lending her talents to important causes. Clover Club, which she opened with her wife and business partner, Susan Fedroff, in 2008, has become one of the City’s foremost craft-cocktail bars. Many of her mentees—including Leyenda co-owner Ivy Mix (see below) and career bartender and educator Franky Marshall—have become industry leaders. In recent years Reiner has moved into the canned cocktail game with Social Hour, opened Milady’s (her recreation of the classic Soho haunt) and served as a judge on Netflix’s Drink Masters (season 2 is coming later this year or early next), boosting the visibility of bartending as a profession.
"I’m just looking to create a legacy that I’m proud of, one that I can look back at and say that we did good things for the industry and for the advancement of women in it,” says Reiner.
Julie Reiner
Experience her vision for yourself: Visit Clover Club in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill for a taste of some of NYC’s best classic cocktails—like the bar’s namesake, a drink that dates back to the late 1800s. Then step across the street to Leyenda for an extensive Latin cocktail and spirits list. In Soho, Milady’s will welcome you in for lunch, happy hour, dinner or a couple of late-night Big Apple Martinis.
Reiner’s Women to Watch: Haley Traub (general manager at Attaboy), Christine Wiseman (beverage director for Bar Lab), Izzy Tulloch (bartender at Milady’s), Jordis Unga (general manager at Katana Kitten)
Ivy Mix
Ivy Mix
Co-founder of Speed Rack, co-owner of Leyenda and Fiasco! Wine + Spirits
After Ivy Mix was hired to work alongside Julie Reiner at a Hawaiian-inspired Soho cocktail bar in 2010 (the defunct Lani Kai), she pitched an idea for a nonprofit cocktail competition for women. Lynnette Marrero, bartender and then president of Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails (LUPEC; see more about Marrero below), signed on as partner after being introduced to Mix by Reiner. Currently in its 12th season, Speed Rack has raised over $1 million for breast cancer research through its nationwide series of fast-paced competitions.
“We started [Speed Rack] because there were very few women working in the cocktail bartending world—now that’s definitely changed,” says Mix, co-owner of Leyenda and Fiasco! Wine + Spirits, author of Spirits of Latin America and coauthor of A Quick Drink. Reiner calls Speed Rack’s founding “a marked moment in cocktail history...that gave women a home base and a place to network, meet other women.”
At Leyenda, Mix promotes education around Latin spirits, mentors up-and-coming bartenders and hosts charitable events revolving around women’s issues and immigration. The bar often works with New York’s Legal Aid Society, which offers legal services and immigration status aid—particularly important in an industry that relies heavily on immigrant workers.
"The most important thing is using my business as a vehicle to do things I care about, which are social justice issues, especially fighting for women and equality and making sure that we all have a seat at the table,” says Mix.
Experience her vision for yourself: Hit up Leyenda for a classic margarita and tacos al pastor, and stay to explore its impressive list of Latin spirits, from tequila and mezcal to charanda (Mexican rum). “We’re a neighborhood spot first and foremost,” says Mix. “We are owned by women, run by women. Nearly 100 percent of our staff speak Spanish. We can accommodate you and you can feel comfortable.”
Mix’s Women to Watch: Janice Bailon (head bartender at Leyenda), Allana Gabriela (bartender at Leyenda, Fabiola Juarez (Crown Shy)
Lynette Marrero
Lynnette Marrero
Chief mixologist and partner at Delola, co-founder of Speed Rack
In the NYC cocktail community, Lynette Marrero is known as much for being a powerhouse behind the bar as for her values-driven work. Whether through her mission as co-founder of Speed Rack, beverage director for the Latinx House, her bar-consulting business or with Delola, her venture with superstar Jennifer Lopez, Marrero likes to “take on projects that amplify communities that aren’t always at the forefront.”
“The spirits world is definitely more dominated by men, so being a part of a woman-founded company…and knowing that the people I was involved with had similar [community-focused] goals…was really important to me,” Marrero says of partnering with Mix for Speed Rack.
Lynette Marrero
With next month’s release of A Quick Drink: The Speed Rack Guide to Winning Cocktails for Any Mood, which includes recipes from bartenders in Australia, Singapore, Mexico and elsewhere, Marrero looks forward to sharing the “incredible global community” they’ve built. “We’ve seen this really beautiful natural growth and evolution of Speed Rack, but it still has more work to do,” she says. “As long as the bartenders keep wanting to sign up, we’ll keep doing it.”
Experience her vision for yourself: For her latest high-profile venture (perhaps you’ve seen the Delola commercials?), Marrero partnered with Jennifer Lopez to create bottled spritzes. They also recently launched Delola Gives Back, in which nonprofits can submit a request for products to serve at their events: “We want to give back to communities, we want to give back through our activism, and that’s central for Jennifer too.”
You can also learn to stir, shake and generally boost your home bartending skills with Marrero's online Masterclass in Mixology, which she teaches alongside fellow award-winning bartender and industry leader Ryan Chetiyawardana.
Marrero’s Women to Watch: Natasha Bermúdez (bar director at Restaurant Group Llama), Marisela Dobson (bartender at Death & Co), Eryn Reece (Frederick Wildman and Sons)
Celina Perez
Celina Perez
Head distiller at Great Jones Distilling Company
Since 2019, Celina Perez has been making history at Great Jones Distilling Company, the first working whiskey distillery in Manhattan since Prohibition times.
“Being a part of bringing craft whiskey distillation back to Manhattan after nearly 100 years—this is a landmark moment for spirits in New York City, for women, for me.” says Perez.
Over the past five years at Great Jones, Perez has found her ideal intersection of distilling, sustainability and collaboration. “We source our grain predominantly from the Black Dirt region [in New York’s Warwick Valley, around 60 miles northwest of the City], which is a very fertile, nutrient-rich area,” says Perez. Great Jones also works with farmers in Montauk and collaborates with winemakers on Long Island; among the products are Empire Rye (one of Perez’s favorites, which she says is “indicative of the terroir of New York State”) and Peated Scotch Cask Bourbon. Perez has also found that she’s able to pass on her hard-earned expertise at Great Jones to its beginner distillers.
“Long term, I would like to think that I have made some incredible whiskey, but more than that I would like to think that I have elevated the people around me to pursue the goals that they have in the industry,” she says.
Celina Perez
Experience her vision for yourself: Great Jones offers tours of the Manhattan distillery Tuesdays through Sundays. Perez also recommends grabbing a drink at the Tasting Room bar—she’s a big fan of the old-fashioned, which comes in a dramatic, smoky cloche. Or you could grab a Manhattan cocktail made with whiskey distilled in Manhattan. What’s not to love?
Perez’s Women to Watch: Aisha Colindres (distilling supervisor at Great Jones), Hannah Toale (distiller and production manager at New York Distilling Company)
Meaghan Dorman
Meaghan Dorman
Bar director at Raines Law Room, Raines Law Room at The William, Dear Irving Gramercy and Dear Irving on Hudson
Raines Law Room has been a stalwart of the NYC bar scene since it opened in Chelsea in 2009, thanks primarily to bar director Meaghan Dorman. Hired onto the opening team from a Craigslist ad, she says, “I saw a lane where Raines could be successful, but it also needed somebody that really cared about it and wanted to steer the ship.” This year marks Raines’ 15th anniversary—a milestone that illustrates the success of what Dorman calls her “slow and steady” style of leadership.
“So many people have come through Raines Law Room and Dear Irving [the first of which was opened by Dorman and partners in 2013] and now work all over the country or all over the world,” she says. “That reflects well on me, that these drinks and this style have traveled.”
Dorman has been in the industry long enough to see how women’s opportunities have grown, and has been on the forefront of that change, including as a founding member of LUPEC, in her hiring practices and as an educator.
“Sometimes it’s [about] the people that have been there like me, Lynnette and Julie, what we’ve been through and making sure [history] doesn’t have to repeat itself just because ‘it’s always been that way,’” says Dorman. “If we get an interesting opportunity or a cool invite, we always ask for another spot. There’s room for us all.”
Experience her vision for yourself: “Tourists and locals can appreciate that in a very hectic city, [my bars are] all beautiful places to sit down and enjoy the company that you’re with,” says Dorman. “We consider ourselves ambassadors for the food and beverage scene in New York. I always call us the ‘inside concierge.’” Not only can her team provide you with insider recommendations for places to visit, but guests at Dear Irving can write postcards to loved ones that the bar will mail for you.
Dorman’s Women to Watch: Samantha Casuga (head bartender at Temple Bar), Kelsey Kracke (head bartender at Dear Irving Gramercy)
Joanna Carpenter
Joanna Carpenter
Founder of 86 the Barrier (86 la Barrera), Broadway actor
As the daughter of Chinese immigrants and Midwestern entrepreneurs, Joanna Carpenter says hospitality is “in her blood.” When she moved to New York City to pursue a Broadway acting career, she quickly found a job bartending and fell into a “pretty juicy career” behind the stick.
But from the beginning, “it was very apparent that the same inequities that exist in the theater industry in terms of race and gender and pay and invisibility are about 10 times as bad in hospitality,” Carpenter says.
Those inequities came to a head during the Covid-19 shutdown. Carpenter jumped into action, founding 86 the Barrier (86 la Barrera), a nonprofit to teach vocational English to Spanish-speaking immigrant hospitality workers and asylum seekers. She knew this demographic in the industry would be left behind when bars and restaurants began to reopen, and wanted to give them an essential tool to find stability in the US.
Carpenter secured a $50,000 grant from United Way for a pilot program; partnered with the Chinese-American Planning Council, which provided classroom space; and enlisted bilingual industry friends (including Barbara Sibley, chef-owner of La Palapa, who provided home-style meals) and language instructors to begin offering free classes. The program was a success right out of the gate. She’s already expanded it to include families and access to health and hygiene care for asylum seekers living in shelters, and is currently looking for funding for its next round of classes.
Though she recently reentered acting full time, making her Broadway debut in Sweeney Todd and taking a role in Off-Broadway’s The Connector, Carpenter wants to build on the early successes of 86 the Barrier.
“I’m a firm believer that when you have an empathy gap, change is not possible,” says Carpenter. “The industry is at several apexes of change right now, but there’s a lot of talk and not a lot of change. I would love to see non-Spanish speakers actively making strides to learn how to communicate in basic, rudimentary Spanish with their Spanish-speaking counterparts.”
Carpenter’s Women to Watch: Katie Kennedy (head bartender at Contento)