We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Maria, Sarah & Shea a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Maria, Sarah & Shea, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Our mission is to provide an enjoyable, approachable, and educational whiskey experience for women, and to help women network, socialize and thrive in a field that has traditionally been male-dominated. Maria used to co-own a local craft distillery in San Diego which specialized in making in-house grain-to-glass whiskey. So whiskey (of all types) has always been special to her, and it is a spirit that she is very familiar with. She began to realize that she enjoyed sharing whiskey with friends just as much as she enjoyed drinking it herself. Maria also realized that sometimes women are made to feel less educated than men when it comes to whiskey, and especially when drinking it “neat” (with no water, mixer or ice). This is what led her down the path of wanting to start a local chapter of Women Who Whiskey in San Diego.
Maria was familiar with the organization because her distillery hosted an event with the Los Angeles chapter, and she was surprised to hear that San Diego did not yet have a chapter. It was the president of the L.A. chapter, Kim O’Hanneson, who put her in touch with the national president to start one in San Diego.
Maria paired up with her friend Sarah, who is a well known whiskey educator, with Sarah becoming the Vice President of the chapter. The ladies began recruiting members and organizing events. The rest, as they say, is history!
At the beginning of 2022, Maria announced that she will be moving out of state, at which time Sarah will step into the role of President. We are lucky to have found Shea, who will be taking over Sarah’s former Vice President role. All three officers work very well together and have been instrumental in continuing to grow the organization.
Our events consist of anything from whiskey tastings, casual happy hour meet-ups and distillery tours. We even had a chocolate and whiskey pairing for Valentine’s Day.
It has been a great ride so far and we look forward to what’s next!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

We are the San Diego chapter of Women Who Whiskey, a national organization and experimental whiskey club originally founded in New York City that focuses on giving its members the opportunity to learn about varieties of whiskeys and cocktail culture, and also to join a network of like-minded women. Currently there are over 30 different chapters in both the United States and abroad. We are all very proud to be a part of this organization which focuses on educating and empowering women in a field that is traditionally male-dominated. As the organization continues to grow, we are looking forward to cultivating the relationships that have already formed with our members, industry representatives and local proprietors, as these individuals and companies have all been tremendously supportive in our endeavor. And of course we are looking forward to meeting new and inspiring people as we travel along on this journey!

How’d you meet your business partner?

Maria met Sarah almost ten years ago, after attending a whiskey tasting event at Maria’s home. The two quickly realized that they were the only two females in a room of almost 40 people! Naturally, they chatted and bonded immediately over their shared love of whiskey. When Maria began to go through the steps of formally starting the chapter, she was unaware that Sarah was also going through the same process! This was when the national President put the two in touch and suggested they start the San Diego chapter together. The biggest challenge we faced was the time it took to find the right team of leaders to launch the chapter. We knew we needed team members with great organizational and communication skills. We did not want to go fully live and start the chapter until all of the key players were in place.
Maria and Sarah met Shea through her regular attendance of Women Who Whiskey events and were impressed with her desire and ability to organize tastings for her friends and acquaintances. Shea seemed like an obvious choice to step into a leadership role once it was announced that Maria would be moving away.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

We had it pretty easy since we are part of a nationally recognized organization. Our growth was very organic and mostly spawned from people who had heard about the national group and wanted to join our chapter.

The best advice we can give is that you need to create content that you care about. If you want to build a presence, you should be willing to dedicate hours and hours of your life to the social media world. With that kind of time commitment, make sure to create a presence around something you really love!

Our next recommendation is to find your tilt. That means, if you want to talk about whiskey, you need to define what makes you unique in that space. Is it whiskey and tacos? Whiskey and women? Whiskey with your own unique humor? With so many people on the internet today, figure out how you will stand out.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.womenwhowhiskey.club/sandiego
• Instagram: @womenwhowhiskeysandiego
• Facebook: Women Who Whiskey San Diego