A little woman, Irish, knocked back the drink (5)
I believe the answer is:
rioja
'the drink' is the definition.
(Rioja is an example)
'a little woman irish knocked back' is the wordplay.
'little woman' becomes 'Jo' (character from Little Women).
'irish' becomes 'IR' (abbreviation).
'knocked back' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'a'+'jo'+'ir'='ajoir'
'ajoir' written backwards gives 'RIOJA'.
(Other definitions for rioja that I've seen before include "Dry red wine from Spain" , "wine region" , "Popular Spanish wine" , "Spanish red wine" , "Spanish wine type" .)