In-Store: Sammi Katz & Olivia McGiff: Spirited Women w/ Amanda Schuster

Event guidelines:

• All attendees are strongly encouraged to wear a face mask at all times.
• Tickets are limited to restrict capacity at our store, and each ticket will include either a copy of the featured book or a $10 Books Are Magic gift card.
• Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
• A signing will follow the talk.
• Home address is collected for contact tracing purposes; it will not be used otherwise.
• The event will also be livestreamed for free here: https://youtube.com/live/ADvRIDKAsHc
• As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event, even if you have a ticket; email us and we'll work it out.

If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact [email protected].

Alcohol and spirits have long been thought of as a male-dominated field, but the truth is that women have been serving it up for centuries. (Literally—the first distilling technology is believed to have been invented by a woman in 100 CE.)

Today, many women are shaking up the industry, from distillers and blenders to bar owners and spirits educators. In this fun, feminist, vividly illustrated book, bar professional Sammi Katz and illustrator Olivia McGiff celebrate the spirit and spirits of 55 of these groundbreaking women with profiles and recipes, in three areas of the industry: Makers (women who are directly involved in the development and production of spirits); Shakers (mixologists and bar owners); and Trailblazers (women who have influenced the spirits world in other ways, such as historians, authors, and entrepreneurs).

Each profile is paired with a cocktail recipe that highlights each woman's story, including the Title IX (a favorite at Portland's female-owned sports bar The Sports Bra); Casual Brilliance (a take on a Sazerac, inspired by a whisky distiller in Australia); and Le Donne (which features an amaro revived from near extinction by a family of Italian women).

This colorful book of unsung heroines joyfully raises a glass to the dame and the dram!

Cocktails will be provided courtesy of Kasama Rum!

Sammi Katz is a writer and bartender from New York City. She loves sharing her enthusiasm for all things cocktails and is always up for a lively debate about the appropriate garnish for a Last Word. She is the creator of the blog A Girl’s Guide to Drinking Alone.

Olivia McGiff is an artist living in Brooklyn. She designs book covers by day and illustrates drinks, dogs, and loved ones by night. Her illustration work has been featured in LitHub, Produce Parties, and Corriere della Sera’s COOK.

Together, Sammi and Olivia work as a writer-illustrator duo to make cocktails and spirits accessible and fun. Their joint work has appeared in The New York Times and The Daily Beast, and they are co-authors of Cocktails in Color: A Spirited Guide to the Art and Joy of Drinkmaking (2023).

Amanda Schuster is a freelance lifestyle writer, editor, and beverage consultant based in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of Signature Cocktails (2023), Drink Like a Local New York (2022), and New York Cocktails (2017). She has contributed to numerous publications including Food & Wine, Saveur, Atlas Obscura, InsideHook, Forbes, and Bloomberg, and was the Editor-in-Chief of Alcohol Professor. She has still not found a transfer-free lipstick that can withstand a Margarita salt rim.

Host or Publisher Books Are Magic