For the last three years oil painter Brandi Donan visited, interviewed and listened to local cocktail creators learning how they tell their stories through drinks. The conversations turned into 50 different oil paintings showcasing Donan’s interpretation of each cocktail in her upcoming book, Art of Spirits.
At its heart, Art of Spirits is a book about storytelling. A cocktail creator begins the story through flavor, aroma and ingredients, and Donan continues it through paint, interpreting each drink through her own visual narrative. In some cases, local poets add another voice, writing poems inspired by what they see in her paintings.
“A painter paints a story. A bartender pours one,” Donan said as we sat down for a cup of coffee at Mad Priest Coffee Roasters.
Donan said she has always made things with her hands. As a young child growing up in Indiana, she often visited her grandmother, who lived across the street.
“We would always watch Bob Ross paint the little trees on TV,” she said. “Grandma was an artist as well and she painted all the time. I would go to her house and we would just paint. I would always get mad because my paintings never looked as good as hers.”
But as time passed and life took its course, art was replaced with a nursing career.
“Because supposedly you can’t make money being an artist,” she said. After moving to Chattanooga with her husband and having a child Donan left the nursing industry.
“It was just never my passion,” she said.
Her friend was pregnant and Donan was in charge of throwing the baby shower. Donan found a cute drawing on Etsy, and she realized she would be able to draw it making it more personal and less expensive. It also reignited her passion for making art.
“I put my son down for a nap and I started drawing and I lost myself,” she said. “My son woke up and I thought wow that was a short nap then I looked at the time, and it had been three hours. Something inside me just changed. I just knew it was the right time. It opened something within me, and I remembered that feeling of being present and I haven’t stopped painting since.”
Donan started going to Townsend Atelier, a place that offers various art workshops, classes, lectures and more.
“People from all over the country and all over the world teach there and we have some amazing artists here too,” she said. Donan said she made art a daily habit.
“I would put my son to bed for a nap, and I would paint and draw every single day,” she said.
The inspiration for Art of Spirits came from taking her aunt and uncle out for cocktails when they came to visit her.
“I saw how creative the bartenders are at mixing flavors and aromas and how they know how to pair certain ingredients with other certain ingredients,” she said. It just felt similar to painting. I might just use something simple like a chair and the way the light is hitting it. The process felt similar. And I thought wouldn’t it be cool to kind of flip how people view art.”
Donan said art is not just canvas and it’s not just paint.
“It can be a cocktail,” she said. “It can be this beautiful creation. I thought it would be cool to take an oil painter and a bartender and put our artwork together in the same media.”
Creating the book took three years as Donan talked to bartenders, learning about their cocktail, the inspiration behind them and the bartender’s thought process. Once she learned about a specific cocktail, she created a painting showing her own interpretation.
“For example, I have one called the California Gold Rush,” she explained. “I put the drink on the table, and it has gold mining pans in the background and big bags of gold and there is a journal there. In my head I imagined the gold minor is writing down how much he’s made or writing a letter to his family. I didn’t want to just paint a drink with a garnish and a napkin. That’s been done. I wanted to paint the story and transport the viewer into the story. It’s not only the creator’s story but it’s my story.”
Mocktails are also featured in the book for people who don’t drink alcohol. Each painting has a recipe and behind the scenes information on what Donan was thinking while creating each unique piece.
“It also has some local poetry done by local poets,” she said. “I gave them my painting. They looked at it and wrote the poem based on what story they saw. It’s a book about story telling. There is also a short bio about the cocktail creator with their photo and their signature.”
She said the book also features information about the restaurants and bars the cocktails came from including places like Calliope, Easy Bistro, Main Street Meats, and The Rosecomb,
“It is a high-end luxury art book,” Donan said. “It is a recipe book. It is a shout out celebration for our creative cocktail artists and it is also a Chattanooga city restaurant guide.”
Donan said the book is being produced as a collectible item featuring a luxurious heavy paper hardback cover.
“I wanted something that was beautiful enough to sit on the coffee table, but I also hope that every once in a while, it is next to a cocktail shaker,” she said.
The book will be exhibited on October 2nd at Townsend Atelier where the author and artist said her inspiration all started. It is free and open to the public from 5-8 p.m.
“You can see the original oil paintings,” Donan said. “You can buy the book, oil paintings, prints will be for sale and there will be very high-end reproductions for sale.”
Some of the cocktails featured in the book will be available. Proceeds from the sales of the cocktails will go to the Tennessee River Gorge Land Trust. Donan said her family loves the outdoors, and this organization is a great steward of the land.
“I hope that people come away seeing that art can be tasted, painted, written and shared,” she said.
Art of Spirit can be pre-ordered on her website at a discounted price for a limited time and customers will receive a signed copy.
Art of Spirit exhibit
- October 2, 2026, from 5-8 p.m.
- Townsend Atelier
- 311 East 11th Street, Suite 200, Chattanooga
- Pre-order book at: www.brandidonan.com