The bourbon sector is booming. 

In 2014, total whiskey volume sold spiked by 7.3 percent, once again the highest gain of any alcohol in the spirits industry, according to data from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. Bourbon and Tennessee varieties alone accounted for as much as $2.7 billion in revenues.

Here’s the somewhat surprising part: Despite the stereotypes suggesting the drink is usually consumed by Don Draper types, as many as 30 percent of total whiskey drinkers are women, according to a 2012 Simons Market Research Report. This fact has not gone unnoticed in the industry, which is why it’s perhaps less surprising that some of the more creative and innovative roles at top brands now are held by women.

“Some argue that women are more creative than men, and a widespread belief is that they have better palates,” notes Becky Paskin, editor of the U.K. media site Scotchwhisky.com. “While whiskey may have been very male-dominated in the past, [women distillers] are forging a permanent position for women within the whiskey industry now and in the future.”

Check out three entrepreneurial women who are leading industry trends and keeping their companies on top.

1. The Unwritten-Rule-Breaker.

Nicole Austin, 31, co-founded the Brooklyn-based King’s County Distillery in 2010. In fact, she left her job as an environmental consultant in New York City to launch the company just three days before Hurricane Sandy. (The hurricane flooded the upstart’s basement, destroying some equipment in the process.) Ever since, she’s led the company with a simple and practical philosophy: “You have to come to grips with knowing what you don’t know.” Although Austin earned a degree in chemical engineering, she admits that she didn’t know much about whiskey to begin with.

Austin says that there’s very little reliable research that whiskey innovators can turn to for guidance on the production process: “It’s hard to parse what is scientific fact and what is marketing, or truisms passed on over time,” she says.

So Austin tends to scrap conventional wisdom. To that end, she commissioned a new approach to aging. While most distillers hold that whiskeys should be stored in the typical “Kentucky-sized” barrels–which can hold 53 gallons–King’s County uses significantly smaller, 5-gallon barrels. “When you shrink the size, you increase the surface area to volume ratio,” she says. “The idea that a 53-gallon size is magical and optimal doesn’t hold water.” King’s County whiskey sells in more than 250 stores across the country.

2. The Trendspotter.

Heather Daines, 36, is a manager within the product development group for research and development at Jim Beam. A 10-year whiskey veteran, she’s now in charge of the team that develops new products, spirits, and flavors, and “optimizes” European blends for the U.S. market. On any given day, she says she’s working on 10 to 20 projects.

Much like Austin, Daines notes that the whiskey industry offers few resources for brands to work with. That’s why she looks to other, loosely related sectors, like food and restaurant technology, for inspiration.

“If something happens in the spirits industry, you’re really too late for it,” she says. It takes time (years, even) to age the products and bring them to market.

Currently, her team is banking on the idea that the all-natural, grain-based trend in food will also sell big in spirits, too. One of their latest product lines for Jim Beam, called Signature Craft, is a unique hybrid between rye and wheat.

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