I recently returned from my first United States Bartender’s Guild National Conference in Denver, Colorado, where a dear friend and I had the privilege of learning from the most dedicated and inspired minds in the bar world today. Three intense days of speeches and seminars, competitions and award ceremonies were broken up by the occasional museum excursion, and intermittent gastronomical explorations of everything Denver hospitality had to offer. From fermented menma-infused vodka and carbonated coconut water highballs to juicy lychee and raspberry chilled with strawberry gin topped with rose petals over pebble ice, our palates exploded with every sip.

Yet, inspiration was even more intoxicating inside the conference room. Earlier this year, the council and I had done an Education Week seminar in Hawaii on leadership. Yet as two of us sat there and listened to our presenters describe the different kinds of leadership, we began to realize we had just scratched the surface.
Our first speaker spoke about leading with love, while our second speaker presented us with a puzzle. Seated in roundtable groups, with a pile of assorted plastic shapes in the center, each person must create a square using the plastic pieces. The catch — you couldn’t talk or reach over to move anyone else’s pieces once they had selected them; you could only access the pieces you selected, and any pieces others had either left or returned to the middle pile. Lastly, every square had to be the same size. We all laughed nervously, and the word impossible was uttered more than once, as she shouted, “Begin!”

We fumbled around, snatching at pieces that would best help us attain our individual goals, sitting back in satisfaction when our personal square was done, before realizing a few of us were still struggling with mismatched leftovers — a futile task. Taking notice, one of the women stood up and shoved her completed square back into the center, then motioned for me to do the same. Two others followed suit, and we realized that by refreshing the shared pile now allowed for new combinations to be made by everyone. We began paying closer attention to what the person next to us was wrestling with, sacrificing our completed squares when we saw we had the only shape that would help them complete theirs, while our options remained flexible. Before we knew it, we were done!

“Two minutes and 15 seconds … a new record!” Our speaker announced our success as we stared at each other in disbelief. Had it really only been two minutes? We had taken longer complaining about how difficult the puzzle would be than the time it actually took us to solve it!

“I want you to think about a time when you faced a challenge, and received some unexpected help,” she continued, “and share that experience with the person next to you.”

I thought about a time when I had vented to a colleague about a coworker not being a team player. Instead of responding to my complaints, my colleague emailed the subject of my ire and CC’d me, asking how we could help this person better achieve the team goal. They responded with reasons for their behavior, to which my colleague offered simple and immediate solutions. I quickly followed his lead, for which our coworker was visibly appreciative, and suddenly cooperative!

I turned to the woman seated next to me and shared that what I had learned from my colleague was echoed by the game we had just played; that if we focus on the solution instead of the problem, and lead with love instead of negativity, what we once thought were problems, are actually just puzzles waiting to be solved!

In the spirit of inspiration, open-mindedness and collaboration, I want to share a recipe I was asked to create for Asian American and Pacific Islander month. It combines Pacific Island flavors with barley-based shochu, a liquor not traditionally blended with ice or tropical ingredients, creating an unexpected sweet, yet savory, and deliciously frosty convergence of Japanese, Hawaiian and Filipino cultures, perfect for the sweltering summer days ahead.

Hawaiian Halo Halo
* 1.5 ounces iichiko Shochu Saiten
* 1.5 ounces Liquid Alchemist coconut syrup
* 1 ounce pineapple juice
* 0.75 ounces fresh-pressed lime juice
* 0.5 ounces Hamakua Coast Premium ube syrup

Directions:
Blend all ingredients over ice until smooth, and pour into hurricane glass. Garnish with dehydrated pineapple wheel, dried coconut shavings, strawberry slice and pineapple frond.

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.