For Carin Luna-Ostaseski, one sip of Oban and she was hooked.

"It was fantastic," she recalls of the single malt from one of Scotland's oldest, and smallest, licensed distilleries, which was her gateway tipple some 10 years ago.

Now, the first 800 bottles of her 86 proof blended scotch, Sia, will be available this autumn at upscale stores such as K&L Wines, the Whisky Shop and the San Francisco Wine Trading Co. Luna-Ostaseski describes Sia, which is distilled, matured and produced in Scotland, as built on Speyside and Highlands malts, enlivened with a small touch of Islay. Each comes from a Scottish locale with its own distinctive style.

Getting from dream to market has been an effort as complex as the taste sensations that emerge as ice melts into a scotch. Luna-Ostaseski, a Florida native with Cuban parents, moved to San Francisco from New York seven years ago, already a regular at scotch tastings. As she learned more, Luna-Ostaseski began holding tastings. Her hobby became a passion, and it led her to Kickstarter, a move that shook up the industry.

"A lot of what I wanted to do was break the stereotype that scotch is for old rich men sitting in a cigar bar," she says. "I do actually like rum a lot, but I like scotch way, way more."

Luna-Ostaseski set a 40-day Kickstarter goal of $39,000 to cover costs affiliated with 250 cases. Backers, 245 of them, bellied up and pledged $45,784 by the close on Dec. 21, 2012.

As the 36-year-old face of the brand, she countered that old rich guy thing effortlessly, even as she struggled to break away from a career as a digital designer: "I'd been a successful designer for so long, that it was scary to go into a new industry."

Yet some of Luna-Ostaseski's fears may have been misplaced, according to Fred Minnick, the whisky expert and author of the new "Whiskey Women: The Untold Story of How Women Saved Bourbon, Scotch, and Irish Whiskey" ($26.95, Potomac Books). "What she is doing, it's great," says Minnick. "This is a great time to start a whisky company. The enthusiasm for whisky right now is probably the greatest ever seen in American consumers. They're no longer sticking to a single brand, they're trying everything. It's similar to craft beer drinkers when that movement started."

Also in Luna-Ostaseski's favor is a midrange price point, $44.99 a bottle, which encourages consumers to try Sia, and the upsurge in the number of women worldwide who are drinking whisky and forming tasting clubs.

Luna-Ostaseski wanted to call her scotch Sovereign, a name available in the United States but taken in the United Kingdom. "I had fallen too much in love with the name," she says. "I had developed a beautiful 'S' icon, then everything came to a screeching halt."

It took several months for a new name to find her. "I wanted it to be young, hip and smooth and easy to pronounce and easy to read," says Luna-Ostaseski. On a whim, she looked up the Gaelic for six, her favorite number. Sia leaped off the page.

Luna-Ostaseski, who acknowledges that "it's funny, a Spanish girl making scotch," found the industry "receptive and welcoming."

Days after the Kickstarter campaign closed, the Scotsman newspaper almost shrugged as it reported Castillo's 100 blind tastings and visits to 80 distillers before quoting Charles MacLean, a whisky expert: "The funding of it is a very interesting idea and frankly somewhat scary."

Reviews credit Sia with more than interesting financing. George Brozowski of Food & Beverage World said: "This is a delicate scotch that a first timer might like and an old timer might take to sipping on a summer's day. If you can get your hands on it, give it a try."

Now Luna-Ostaseski is having fun marketing Sia, intent on avoiding "the tartans, the bagpipes, the sheepdogs. I respect the tradition ... but that's part of the stereotype I'm trying to flip."