Laura Bonner, owner of an award-winning liquor company says she regularly encounters sexist perceptions when working abroad - but that Ireland is flourishing with talented female entrepreneurs who are 'killing it' in the business world.

Laura Bonner, who set up The Muff Liquor Company in Co. Donegal four years ago, was speaking after a new study published ahead of International Women's Day on Tuesday included Ireland in a list of top countries for female empowerment. The 36-year-old believes Ireland is worthy of its place on the list, but says she still encounters sexism at home and on her travels.

Laura said: "One time at an event [to sell her products], I wasn't even serving anybody and a guy came over and told me I was doing a great job and slipped me a fiver. Then he went over to Niall, who works for me, and said: 'Congratulations you have a great company.'" Ms Bonner said that she didn't bother to correct him, "and kept the fiver".

At another event, she found herself the only woman in the room when a group of older men came over and asked if she was the head of sales. "I was like, 'Yeah, I suppose I am.' There was no way in a million years they would think that I owned the company, until I said: 'And founder and CEO.' And their jaws dropped."

Ms Bonner says she shrugs off such incidents, although she admits one meeting in a Gulf country left her seething.

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"They didn't make eye contact with me. They didn't let me answer any questions. My business partner is a male and they directed every conversation towards him. I was raging when it happened on that first day," she said.

New research by international insurers William Russell ranks Ireland at No.3 in the world for female empowerment based on categories such as paid maternity leave, women in third-level education, and female representation in government.

And Ms Bonner believes this chimes with her and her friends' experiences in business.

She remarked: "Females that I know in business, and I know a lot, are absolutely killing it. They're extremely successful and respected. It's very rare when we get together that someone even speaks ill of their employment at the moment.

"I think a lot of women are really supportive now. They had this attitude back in the day that women would always bitch about women, but I never get that. I love seeing women doing well.

"I love seeing my friends do well and seeing strangers do well. I praise them all the time."

The business owner said it had been a 12-year plan to set up her liquor company, which is one of only a handful in the world to use potatoes in making gin and vodka and is inspired by her grandfather's home poitín making.

Ms Bonner says she previously "climbed the corporate ladder" in London working in property, after a couple of career false starts.

She hated law, which she says she was "terrible" at, but managed to complete her degree in, and a postgrad in PR and marketing didn't stick either. She recalled: "I went on to work for one of the top real estate firms, Colliers International, and just grew my career internally with them. I was headhunted then from [Australian property firm] Ausin Group. I was their social director and then became their director of the UK."

Now she is excelling again with her liquor business - she travels to Portugal tomorrow and Australia later this year for talks with potential distributors - but stresses her success hasn't come easy.

"I was hospitalised with dehydration and exhaustion nine months in, because I was working six days a week, 19 hours a day. I look back at pictures now and I was so thin. Pure, pure stress. I would never do that now. I surround myself with people and I always ask for help. I'm never embarrassed to say I don't know something or can somebody help me with something.

"My thing is, when you bring good people together, something better happens."

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