Greenville, South Carolina native Kassady Wiggins’ love and appreciation for the natural world developed at a young age: She spent most of her childhood weekends helping her grandfather tend his greenhouse. “He was teaching me how to compost before I even knew what compost meant,” she says. “My roots are absolutely in sustainability—even when I was in high school I started an environmental club because I was just such a nerd about the environment.” 

Wiggins’ roots are also solidly in hospitality, having started out as a hostess at a local Chinese restaurant as a teenager and going on to hold serving and bartending positions throughout Greenville and later in Los Angeles, where she moved in 2012 at 21 years old. Her southern upbringing, passion for sustainability, and experience tending and managing all types of bars are put to excellent use in her current position as beverage director of the Southern-inspired Los Angeles restaurant Joyce, which Wiggins co-owns with her husband, Chef Sammy Monsour, and their business partners Prince and Athena Riley. “We opened our doors in August, 2023 after extensive conceptualization, and while my role as an owner involves a broad spectrum of responsibilities, as beverage director I focus on ensuring the bar operates smoothly, creatively, and efficiently, all while upholding our commitment to a zero-landfill program,” Wiggins says. “The bar and restaurant industry in general is very wasteful, so it was important to me to design a program where less than 1% of our waste goes into trash bags.” 

This entails working with sustainable spirits brands and making as many cocktail ingredients as possible in-house, as well as cross-utilizing ingredients from Joyce’s kitchen, from fruits and vegetables to benne seeds and sorghum to oyster shells (cocktails are $15-$19). Wiggins’ Dusk on the Delta ($17) features Suntory Toki Blended Japanese whisky, house-made cucumber syrup, sea salt, Crude “Pooter” Smoke & Salt bitters, and soda water, while her Gussied Up ($19) comprises Haku vodka, Copalli Cacao rum, St. George Nola Coffee liqueur, cold brew coffee, and house-made sorghum syrup. “The Gussied Up gets a lemon expression but it’s not actually garnished with the lemon peel, so we collect all the peels and then use them in our house-made dry vermouth,” Wiggins adds. “I try to instill in my bartenders that we want to utilize every single ingredient—skins, stems, and all—to its fullest before it goes in the compost; it’s about taking the most out of every product that we possibly can.”