Punches for pooches

When I was around 6 years old, all my little sister wanted for Christmas was a dog. My parents tried the usual tricks; first toying with the idea and buying her a battery-operated puppy that barked when you turned it on. When she couldn’t be consoled, there were the week end trips to the Hawaiian Humane Society to play with and walk the real-life dogs, in hopes of impressing upon her the responsibility that comes with owning a pet. This, of course, had the reverse effect on my sister, whose desire to do right by at least one of these sad-faced pooches was further solidified with every empty-handed car ride home.

One Christmas, we heard a scratching at the kitchen door, and there, in our garage, sat a beautiful Sheltie. My sister ran through the house, joyously declaring, “Santa brought us a dog!” while my mother, father and I stood by, dumbfounded. As compassionate parents, they allowed us the wishful thinking that came with giving that Sheltie a bath and feeding him scraps from the fridge, all the while imagining what we should name him. The gaiety, however, was short-lived, as my father suggested that there was probably some other little girl or boy out there, distraught about losing their puppy on Christmas Day. After a few phone calls, we tracked down the owners, and delivered one very clean, very well-fed pup.

My sister never did get her dog, but she now manages a pet clinic, and I ended up volunteering for several years at the local animal shelter, and eventually, while running my first bar program, had the privilege of working a fundraiser called Punches for Pooches. Along with some of the finest bartenders in our state — with a little help from the United States Bartenders’ Guild and our friends at Manifest, a dog-friendly coffee and whiskey bar in downtown Honolulu — we sold drink tickets and raised funds to benefit the Hawaiian Humane Society.

Punches for Pooches is still my favorite running example to the world of fundraising, exhibiting not only how the skills of mixology professionals could be used beyond the bar to help change the world, but also how compassion was so inextricably intertwined with our chosen profession.

A dear friend of mine once made the assertion, “It seems silly that we need a doctor’s note to prove our pet is for emotional support. Unless they’re working animals, emotional support is all pets do!” They say hospitality begins at home; it’s not a job, but rather a state of mind that starts when you wake up in the morning. It’s the way you live your life and the way you embrace others. All you pet owners out there, just who does this remind you of? We forgive our pets their trespasses because they embody the ability to exude genuine warmth and complete lack of judgment, regardless of the situation.

As this Yuletide season draws near, I invite you to celebrate hospitality with a seasonal holiday punch. Thought to have originated in India or Southeast Asia, perhaps in attempt to reconstitute wine from spirits by adding fruit, sugar, and spices, and brought back to London by British sailors as a citrusy means for preventing scurvy, punches are the quintessential holiday cocktail, as they lack the dairy and egg allergens typically found in eggnog. In a year that has been particularly rough on our four-legged friends, I share my original Punches for Pooches recipe, named after a dear friend of mine, in the hopes that we may all strive to be, in the words of the ineffable Bellamy Brothers, “… the person my dog thinks I am.”

Alicia Yamachika is a bartender and craft mixologist, who currently is the key account manager at Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits on Oahu. Follow her on Instagram (@alicia_yamachika). Her column will appear every second Wednesday in Crave.