Katie Sirianni’s Whimsical Love Story Led her to Distilling
The story behind Katie Sirianni’s Love, Katie Distilling doesn’t fit neatly into a standard Q and A. Instead, her journey requires a conversation, a few tangents and plot twists. It’s a love story, after all, and sometimes love requires following a whim.
Katie’s career transformed as she zigged from health care to marketing for car salesmen to entrepreneurship. And then she morphed her business from T-shirt company to mobile bar cart to distilling.
The Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania spirits business is physically located only a few miles from where Katie’s career began but it’s worlds away from how she started.
Following the Heart
For over a decade, Katie worked in health care environments, supporting everyone from pro athletes to children with serious ailments. Toward the end of her tenure, she spent time at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in a traumatic brain injury complex care and child care advocacy clinic – a job that finally burned her out.
“ It was a little bit exhausting for me emotionally,” Katie admitted. “We saw a lot of complex patients and we were coding people and it was a whole thing. My emotions are too high for this.”
That’s when Katie decided to take her first big transformation. “ I did a huge career shift and went into the car dealership industry with marketing internet sales,” she explained.
Online car sales got Katie away from the stress of health care but the gig only lasted briefly. Soon she was forced to take another big left turn in her career.
“ COVID hit,” Katie recalled. “So I left. I have to be a mom and make sure my kids are doing school because nobody else will be here to do that for them. I was one of those parents that had to make the decision to stay home and do the teaching thing.”
For Katie, being a mother always came before her career. But during that first year of the pandemic, it fully eclipsed everything else she had going on. When life returned to a somewhat normal cadence, she took a different approach to work and started her own company.
“ I started a T-shirt business that was doing really well,” Katie recollected. “I was making custom masks for all the schools with teacher and student names on them.”
As sales picked up, Katie started to outgrow her basement. Around that time, she went to a Pride event in downtown Pittsburgh that completely changed the trajectory of her business.
“ I met this girl [selling plants out of] a converted horse trailer and I was like, that's kind of neat,” said Katie. “I could do something like that. I'll do that and have a mobile work space. Three days later, I was driving across the state to pick up a horse trailer with my dad.”
Before building out the workspace, Katie collaborated with the woman from the Pride event and once again took another left turn – reinventing the concept.
“ All within a week, picked up a horse trailer, went to her house, and we decided that we were going to open a mobile bar company together, didn't even know each other from Adam,” Katie admitted.
Taking the Leap
And so Katie – with help from her dad – spent two weeks converting the horse trailer into Sips Mobile Bar Co. Together with her new partner, she launched in June of 2021.
Through the business, Katie got connected to local wineries, breweries and distilleries with expo licenses in order to sell product off site. One in particular, a distillery her mother introduced her to, became an influential catalyst.
“[Through a connection who managed] McLaughlin's distillery in Sewickley, Pa., she was able to get me in to meet with Kim, the owner, who is just like one of the kindest guys you could ever meet in your life,” Katie explained.
Kim wasn’t interested in having Katie and her company sell his spirits off site. But he suggested another option: one that would take Katie on another exciting new adventure.
“He goes, ‘why don't you just open a distillery?’” But, at that point in her journey, Katie wasn’t interested in running a distillery.
Soon after, Katie’s original partner exited stage left. Katie bought her out and continued running the mobile bar. She took a few other side gigs, such as flipping vintage horse trailers and helping other business owners launch similar mobile bar companies.
Feet First
That winter, Katie took a break from the mobile bar business. She tried her hand at distilling after all, helping out behind the scenes at a local distillery. The experience convinced her that opening her own spirits company might not be so bad. So on a whim, she did it.
But Love, Katie Distilling represented more than just a business venture for Katie.
“ I'm a big gift giver,” Katie confessed. And she had a new love in her life around the time she launched the distillery. “ I met Jen and we were able to build a really great bonding connection and she is a big Gin fan … So I was like, ‘what if I make the distillery my love letter to her?’”
Every detail of the distillery underscores that intention. Every bottle produced features a love letter on the back of the packaging – not only to Jen but to anyone who appreciates craft beverage. The environment of the tasting room and cocktail lounge for the distillery welcomes all who enter with a loving and welcoming aesthetic – one that lovingly celebrates powerhouse women over the decades, including Billie Holiday and Lucille Ball.
“It's meant to be a space where you can enjoy a spirit that's made with love with the person you love,” Katie said.
With the same loving attention, Katie designed a gin by choosing flavors she really adored that perfectly complemented one another. That’s how she created her Love, Querida Gin.
“That's where things work for me when it comes to distilling versus the science behind it,” Katie explained. “I had a few trial and error runs on it and finally found something that landed for me. So I named it ‘Querida’ [which] means female sweetheart in Spanish.”
For the Love of a Community
By opening Love, Katie, Katie founded the first gay-owned distillery in the state of Pennsylvania on top of being one of the few female-owned distilleries in the local area. And she also discovered a very welcoming distilling community.
“ I had a few distillers from around Pittsburgh that came down to just be like, ‘We're so excited to have you in the community,’” Katie shared. “I don't feel like there's any discrimination against me because I'm a woman doing it. If anything I feel protected by them in a way. Like I'm their little sister.”
Many of Katie’s fellow distillers around Pittsburgh became mentors, friends and friendly educators for her. She learned from them and even borrowed equipment from them from time to time.
In her immediate circle, Katie built a strong team as well. Her cousin Brian, who’s been with her from the beginning steps in wherever needed. Through Brian, Katie met another Katie who’s been a permanent fixture at the distillery. And finally, her other friend Katie Clark completes the group – three Katies strong – that keeps Love, Katie running.
“ At the end of the day, It's about family and friendship,” Katie gushed, reflecting on her team. “I like to kind of keep it that way, keep it close – close to the heart. After all, it is a love letter.”
Overcoming the Obstacles
Having just celebrated her first anniversary, having opened Love, Katie’s doors back in September of 2023, Katie has had to roll with the punches and challenges of being a business owner.
“I'm the only one that knows how to do any of the runs,” Katie admitted. So when she was in a freak accident this past July that broke her back, it set her back on several goals – including hitting a deadline to wholesale.
But Katie keeps moving forward and looking to the future. She considers herself a very adaptable person and she’s certainly proving it as she keeps finding new ways to keep her business moving.
As a woman in a male dominated industry, she admits that she is one of few gay and female distillery owners. However, she sees the challenge more with societal opinions of what women can accomplish.
“I wish women didn't feel like there was such a .. challenge,” Katie divulged. She wants women to know that the distilling community is small but welcoming and it shouldn’t be such a scary prospect for a woman to become a part of it.
Perhaps women are overthinking it a bit too much. When asked what she would tell a woman considering becoming a distillery, Katie said, “Just do it.”
