‘Wishka’ Russell Davis has lived a life far beyond the bar. From his rise as a renowned bartender and mixology expert to his time spent working with indigenous communities, Wishka has returned to the hospitality industry with a new mission—to redefine the meaning of service, intention, and responsibility. In this exclusive interview, he shares his transformative journey, the hidden truths behind industry symbols, and why bartenders today have the power to reshape the future of hospitality.
Early Beginnings & Career in Bartending
Can you take us back to the beginning—how did you first get into bartending?
Kaynakachun. I walked into a bar at the age of 19 on the West Campus of the University of Texas and asked them if I could be a bartender. I had worked waiting tables and washing dishes in a few restaurants but had this romantic intrigue with bartending, needed to make a lot of money to pay for college expenses, and Cain & Abel’s was a Texas Longhorn tradition. They asked if I had any experience. I timidly replied no, BUT that I knew all of the tricks from the movie Cocktail, which was true.
The year before, I had purchased a fake ID from a guy who lived in my dorm, built a bar in my room with all of the worst alcohol possible, and with a bottle wrapped in duct tape that I would throw as I watched the movie, I learned all of Flanagan and Coughlan’s tricks, pouring all my attention into Tom Cruise’s moves on a slow-motion VHS. That movie inspired me. I would receive complaints from the resident advisor of the dorm for disturbing the neighbors downstairs by dropping so many bottles. But that practice was the only thing that gave me the guts to walk into a bar at the age of 19 and ask for a bartending job with zero experience.
Of course, the manager laughed at me and instead gave me a security job working the door on account of the huge balls he said I had. The security job was absolutely nuts at this crazy cowboy fraternity bar and mainly consisted of taking out trash, breaking up fights (while taking quite a few hits), and kicking out minors—even though I was also a minor—while yanking their fake IDs away as I myself had a fake ID in my back pocket. But I never stopped studying drinks or throwing a bottle when I could get my hands on one or sneaking behind the bar to talk to the bartenders.
Opportunities arose, and I worked my way up from security to barback, to day bar, then nighttime bartender, and on into management until I was running the place. And I did it fast. I was running a bar before I was 21 and was even allowed to legally drink in the USA. I was told I was the youngest bar manager in Austin at the time. That was fun—being young and behind the bar with NO IDEA what I was doing.
Jenna Bush, who was one of my daytime regulars at the time, told me I was her favorite bartender. It was probably a lie. Back then, she had many bartenders, but I still drank it in. That may have been the birth of my professional ego.
I grew up in a dry Bible Belt county in the piney woods of Deep East Texas. And if you know the bull-riding cowboy country that is called Deep East Texas, you know that it is a different world. In the southern United States, a dry county means that you couldn’t buy or sell alcohol within its borders, so there were no bars, and you had to drive at least an hour to find any alcohol—laws that have existed since just after Prohibition. So growing up there, by default, bars and bartending carried a mystique.
You wouldn’t know it now, but back then, I was a very shy and nerdy theatre kid who could not talk to girls. So much so, my father thought I was homosexual and hated me for it, even though in truth, I was just too nervous to talk to girls and was secretly memorizing romantic lines from Shakespeare just in case I ever got the chance to use them.
By the time I was 16, somehow I finally had my first real girlfriend, and she was the one who showed me Cocktail and changed my life forever.
So I guess by the time college came around, I was trying to emulate an archetype of something that I thought girls and people in general wanted—the bartender.
And when I walked behind a bar, there was something that reminded me of being onstage in my theatre studies and playing a character. This connection is what allowed me the confidence to break the barriers of my anxiety and shyness I had with people, especially women, growing up.
Because when I walked behind that bar, I was not that nervous, shy kid. I was the cool and collected bartender with the silver tongue and an answer for everything.
The bar was my stage.
Years later, I would be in talks to help produce a remake of the movie Cocktail, but that is another story. Every few months, I text Heywood Gould, trying to make it happen again.
What was it that first drew you into the hospitality industry, and what kept you in it for so long?
Hospitality is a word that is often misused, misunderstood, and mismanaged by those in an industry that claims they practice it. The oldest definition I can find of the word hospitality is that of chivalric origin, meaning “true service to mankind.” And for me, it has a duality of meaning, coming from the lessons I learned from my grandparents on both sides of my family, which is where I drew the inspiration to begin a path in the hospitality industry.
The first was watching my great-grandparents on my mother’s side, who were well-known and respected restaurateurs, Mama & Papa Molina, walk through their restaurants on a busy night. No matter how old they got, they did so with such grace and sophistication. Papa in his suit and Mama in her pearl necklaces, coming in through the front door shaking hands and smiling, going into the kitchen and waving to all the cooks, hugging servers, hosts, and managers on their way to their special table with the red rose in the center. Molina’s Tex-Mex Restaurants & Cantinas were a staple of the elite and famous of Houston, regularly feeding Presidents who would have secret meetings within their doors.
Mama & Papa founded the restaurant in 1941, Papa working his way from being a dishwasher to buying the first location after coming from Mexico as a refugee from the revolution there. Most people don’t realize I have Mexican heritage and indigenous roots, which would play a vital role in my journey and work with indigenous leaders. But watching the host-hospitality mindset of my grandparents and how people reacted to them seemed so inspirational and awe-inspiring — something I wanted to be. They were always the coolest, most popular people in the room. And they knew how to pack a room with a good time.
The second source of inspiration, which weighs more into the “true service of mankind” role that I would take on in hospitality later in life, would be from my father’s side of the family, who all had military and Freemasonry backgrounds. The Davis side were Blue & Royal 33-degree Master Masons and keepers of cryptic secrets. I grew up studying the ancient ritual books hidden in the 125-year-old house that was on the property—a house that hid family secrets and, at one point, legend has it, served as the Murival Chapter Temple—the Freemason meeting place in the former free zone of the Republic of Texas.
Years later, I would find the connections between the Templar Masters and ancient Toltec Rites of indigenous rituals of my same Mexican heritage, but that is another story as well. Growing up and watching the way my grandmother and grandfather served the world in various ways absolutely defined who I would become as a human attempting to practice hospitality in all aspects of life through truly serving mankind.
My grandfather and namesake, Captain Charles Russell Davis, was a very, very important naval captain who helped develop the Navy SEALs, served in the FBI (and CIA, most likely), became a JAG officer who helped quell the Cuban Missile Crisis, taught at the Naval War College, led very important and sensitive missions, and ended his career in the Pentagon.
I never knew this much about his career until after his death, but when we walked into the officers’ club at the military base on Sunday mornings for brunch, the way the other military officers would salute and respect him was undeniable.
It was him, a lifelong Mason, that became my first teacher in secret things — ways of thinking to help unlock codes, a skill that would become very valuable later on in my work in service to indigenous leaders, helping to recover ancient secret archaeological sites and points of knowledge.
It never hurt my bartending either.
I am not a Freemason, by the way.
It was obvious my grandfather had served a higher cause. But what wasn’t as obvious was that the highest cause he served was to the sacred feminine through his true love and support of his wife and my grandmother, Lelia “Leaky” Davis.
A Southern belle teacher and true philanthropist who wouldn’t even peek out of the blinds in her sherry parlor unless she was fully dressed, Grandmom taught me so much growing up about truly caring for and serving other humans.
Time spent with her was time spent in hospitals, retirement homes, and churches, delivering food, gifts of aid, or love and attention to the sick, poor, elderly, or anyone who needed it.
That was a truly special time in my life, riding around Corpus Christi, Texas, my birthplace, and carrying the foil-wrapped cakes she made to people who had no one else, and receiving hugs and love from the nuns of the Carmelite Sisters, who took care of the people whom my grandmother loved very much.
That was true hospitality.
What has kept me in it for so long? Partially, it’s that I have always felt like I am meant to be a beacon of light in dark places, and I believe that we, as an industry, are practicing the form, function, and execution of hospitality so wrong right now that it takes people like me to fight to protect its true meanings when we get so off-center (please see my comments on the pineapple in my answers to the question below).
And partially, I feel responsible for how far off-center I feel like the hospitality industry has become in its attempt at practicing true hospitality in recent years.
Bartenders’/Mixologists’ careers in media and their influence are taking off much like the celebrity chefs of years past. I know—I was an expert on one of the shows that helped kickstart that (Paramount’s Bar Rescue) and then helped write/develop/produce/cast the one that really publicly elevated it (Netflix’s Drink Masters).
And many of us, including myself, didn’t truly grasp what we were doing and the breadth of how our trailblazing steps would set the tone for others and the path they would take. We knew, but we really didn’t know.
We were all getting wasted. Some still are.
And as I look at what we are doing as a profession and industry now, I feel like we are a bit broken.
Few are truly serving mankind as hospitality professionals. Many are serving themselves and their own careers and happiness.
Whether it is to make the most Instagram-able cocktail for likes and follows, or to get rowdy in inexcusable ways at cocktail/industry conferences/events (I know it, I did it myself), we have lost sight of how we are supposed to be beacons of light in dark places as bar professionals, and I hold myself accountable for that—as being one of, if not the first, bartender/mixologist with a blue check mark beside his social media profiles and realizing how I was acting…
Mistreating that honor I had immensely.
Abusing my status.
Many of us did.
So now, I am returning to the industry because I need to fix that perspective and what a generation of us did to this sacred and time-honored ancestral profession.
You’ve worked at the highest levels of the industry—what were some of the most defining moments of your career?
Most people define themselves by their achievements. I do not. Not anymore. I define myself by my mistakes and failures and how I recover from them. And if you look at the world around you, that’s how it truly defines you too.
Kind of like the old bar joke about McGregor the Goat F*****, who wasn’t known for the thousands of bridges and bars he built.
But I was not always that way. I definitely used to define myself by my achievements.
For you now, I am going to list some of the things that I had in my arsenal of bragging rights—not because I believe they define me now, but because I did before. And I would rather help you understand the sweetness of my own Kool-Aid that I was drinking, that made me become an incredibly big asshole and later a bitter human once I had lost everything.
But I had to humble my entire being and be witness to the death of my own ego first before I could properly serve my purpose to the universe.
I was 2012 Nightclub & Bar Bartender of the Year, Barstaff of the 2011 Tales of the Cocktail Award for Top High Volume Cocktail Bar, Co-Inventor of the Zero Gravity Martini Glass, former Co-Founder of ShakerandSpoon.com, Mixology Expert for 16 episodes of Paramount Network, consultant/producer who helped write/**develop/**cast Netflix’s Drink Masters, winner of multiple other awards/competitions/accolades, and more.
People used to call me a legend to my face and behind my back.
“From Southern Gentleman to San Francisco Businessman, Russell Davis is the Aristocrat of the Working Class” is what the headlines said.
Headlines since deleted from history in response to allegations and my fall from grace.
Before 2018, I had made it my life’s mission to set new standards, raise the bar, and win awards—trying to fill some void in myself that was never going to be filled and certainly was not the way to heal something within I needed to heal.
I was always competing in my own personal popularity contest. It was a toxic lifestyle that I know many professionals choose to this day.
And I let the lifestyle, popularity, and my own ego get to my head.
For that, I will always be sorry, but I have learned to forgive myself and love myself for the experience.
But at the time, none of these accolades could protect my reputation, career, and livelihood after a series of events that would eventually lead to a false arrest for something I didn’t do.
I was too broken of a human being at the time to publicly defend myself, so I put my life and all of my assets and money into service to indigenous spiritual leaders of the world under the Eagle and Condor Prophecy instead—spending three years giving away everything I owned in an effort to cleanse and balance my spirit as the world was publicly destroying me.
But my grandfather taught me all truth comes out in the wash.
So I decided to wait for the wash patiently instead of fighting the tide of public perspective.
I am a battleship, not a cruise ship.
So what were my defining moments?
A major lawsuit I pressed against a huge player in the hospitality industry after incurring an injury—and the mistakes in decisions made around it that led to me becoming the target of a MAJOR hack, public doxxing with false accusations trying to defame me, gangstalking, business partners taking advantage of my situation, and attempts on my life that led to an arrest and FBI involvement to help secure and protect me.
Later, a major defining moment would be the arrest for six charges of domestic violence for things I did not do (all charges would later be dropped because they were lies, and witnesses were ready to step in).
I became the victim of a beautiful woman I fell in love with way too fast, who only wanted the money she thought I was going to make with the greenlighting of the network show that I had written and developed and was supposed to originally judge.
I knew I shouldn’t have moved into a villa. I made myself a target.
Damn ego.
At one point during the argument in question that led to the arrest (five days later, I may add), this person literally put a gardening knife in my hand as I was crying during a very harsh fight, and she told me to kill myself.
That would turn into an assault with a deadly weapon charge for me.
That’s a felony.
Horrible experience. Worst of my life.
I would lose the show I developed (and proper credit) and everything else after these charges were made—no matter what the truth was and that the charges were dropped.
My friends, my businesses, my health, my happiness, and my sanity.
It all just left.
I know what it is like to have been at the top of the game—and to have been canceled.
To have had everything, and lost it all.
Why do these things define me, you say?
Because I survived them.
And what’s more, I am getting back up again.
I did the work to heal. And I’m still healing. We’ll always take damage — sometimes to old wounds — and so we’re constantly healing, until we become enlightened. But my suffering has given me a valuable tool: empathy. It helps me serve the world around me, others, and myself to the best of my ability.
Everyone loves an underdog and a comeback.
I have been the underdog—now it is time to make a comeback.
Transformation & Leaving the Industry
You stepped away from bartending and spent time in rainforests, working with indigenous communities. What led you to that decision?
“I think it burns my sense of truth
To hear me shouting at my youth
I need a way to sort it out.
After I die, I’ll re-awake,
Redefine what was at stake
From the hindsight of a god.
I’ll see the people that I use,
See the substance I abuse,
The ugly places that I lived.
Did I make money? Was I proud?
Did I play my songs too loud?
Did I leave my life to chance
Or did I make you fucking dance?”
The first lines of ‘Global Concepts’ by Robert Delong described how I felt perfectly.
Honestly, I was going to take my life. After all that had happened, I wanted to die.
Also, something to note—it was the hospitality industry that I left four years ago, not bartending, as at this time, I was a consultant. I had stopped bartending day-to-day back in 2013.
But at the time I left, it was because of all the heartache I had experienced, and the world was different after the pandemic.
Plus, I had been canceled. I had no friends anymore, no business. No one would talk to me. I could go months without a phone call from anyone from my past life—only indigenous folks asking for money. And I gave it to them.
But at the time I wanted to kill myself, I also had a lot of money.
I had made some good investments and sold my companies/projects that I had built, and this is what kept me alive—as the same week I was arrested and about to end it all, all this money was dumped on my lap by the universe.
So instead of killing myself immediately, I made the decision that I was going to spend three years giving away everything I had earned in service to the indigenous and ancestral ways under the prophecy of the Eagle and Condor.
Not a little, but a lot of money. And myself.
I had planned to take my life on my birthday, during the eclipse, in a ritual that was the same as my Toltec/Aztec ancestors. But I was only going to do it after I had corrected the legacy of what I wanted to leave behind and how I wanted to be remembered.
I even collected the ancient obsidian blade I was going to use.
But over the years, I would discover the universe had other plans for me, and I only needed to feel these ways so that the universe could humble me once again through the multiple deaths of my own ego, which I will describe later.
So for three years, I lived my life on the edge, putting myself at risk to protect, secure, and fight against things others wouldn’t understand—giving away everything of myself I had in the process.
It was my cleansing.
As well, there are many secrets in the jungles and remote places where I work. And over the years, I had seen and knew too much.
I mean, it was right during the beginning of my downfall that John McAfee, of McAfee antivirus fame, was challenging me to cocktail competitions in the jungles of Kathmandu over Twitter.
This was when I was deep into my studies of poisons and venoms.
“Two men walk in, one man walks out,” he would say.
He knew I knew some secrets, and we talked many times on the phone before his suspicious “suicide.”
And it was during this time that I was not only providing aid to the indigenous communities and securing ancient things, but also encountering deeply troubling forces—some criminal, some spiritual, and some that defy explanation.
On my last investigation, I came across people connected to fringe esoteric circles and belief systems, including those who claimed transformation through ancient rites.
While this may sound unbelievable to many, these realities are acknowledged by the communities I serve.
And it was my mission to fight all the bad in the world before I took my life.
This is how I earned the respect of the indigenous leaders.
Sacrifice.
I was ready to sacrifice everything for them and for the good of the world.
But as I said before, the universe had other plans.
By the way, I think it is important to say that with all the things I mention—that may sound too crazy, mystical, or impossible—I learned years ago to do the due diligence of securing and keeping proof of everything.
And I either have proof, witnesses, or both to everything I present.
So stay with me here.
This article is not only an interview, but also my big reveal and evolution.
What were the biggest lessons you learned during your time living outside of the industry?
Magic is real in the universe, and I can be a powerful force of light for it. It’s just a quantum science we don’t know how to understand or explain yet. That is the first thing.
So, for the past ten years, I have been traversing the globe studying ancient, obscure, international, and indigenous drinking culture, recipes, rituals, and ingredients—trying to catalog them before they were lost.
Of the three main human necessities—to breathe, to sleep, and to consume—the first two come naturally. But consumption has to be aided and taught.
And the first consumption is drinking a beverage.
So, there are more secrets in the connections of cultures in the study of beverages than I believe anything else.
These studies would quickly turn into providing help, service, and aid to various indigenous communities around the world, because I could not just study the knowledge and not reciprocate help where it was needed to the people I was taking the knowledge from.
What started small—such as delivering food, supplies, or medicine—turned into helping build schools, fixing community centers, sending leaders to important international activist gatherings or peace conferences, or rebuilding farms destroyed by storms, etc.
I did these types of things for five years in service to a prophecy I was introduced to during that time (and various leaders said I was important to) called the Eagle and Condor.
The Eagle and Condor Prophecy is an ancient teaching shared by indigenous cultures of the Americas, foretelling a time when the Eagle (representing the mind, science, and the North) and the Condor (representing the heart, spirit, and the South) will reunite after a long separation.
This reunion symbolizes a coming era where humanity balances technology with wisdom, logic with intuition, and material progress with spiritual harmony.
The prophecy speaks of unification, healing, and the need for collaboration between different peoples and ways of life to restore balance to the world.
This spoke to me. Loud and clear.
At the same time I was being introduced to the prophecy, indigenous people were showing me secret things and places that no other white man had seen before—things that defied history.
I was also starting to have mysterious things happen, and mystical abilities start to develop.
Things I will not go into too much depth with here.
But, I still felt… stagnant. Felt like I was on the outside looking in on the truth.
But three years ago, everything changed. All my service under various leaders and councils added up and mattered to some of the most influential indigenous leaders in the world, including someone I now call my close friend and brother, Mindahi Bastida, ceremonial master of the Otomi Toltec and Director of the Council of Earth Elders of the Eagle and Condor Prophecy.
If you have never heard of Mindahi, not only is he an amazing spiritual leader, warrior, and defender of Mother Earth, but he is also the man who delivered the letter to the Pope, which convinced the church to formally renounce the Doctrine of Discovery. He is currently featured in a film called A Condor Over Shambala, which documented his and the Council of Earth Elders’ prophetic meeting with the Dalai Lama in the Himalayas for the Eagle and Condor.
It was under him that I would serve as Ambassador and Special Advisor for the Grand Council of Earth Elders of the Eagle and Condor. Part of my volunteer job was to advise the leaders in business matters of the Western world, act as an ambassador speaking for the council at gatherings the leaders couldn’t attend, and help to balance, restore energy, or lead expeditions to recover ancient, secret archaeological sacred sites of knowledge, along with the artifacts from these places. These artifacts were to be placed in the anciently mandated Houses of Original Thought, which are being built by indigenous leaders around the world—essentially, the new temples of a unified humanity.
For the new dawn.
We were completing the last mandates of Moctezuma, uncovering the things he had hidden away for this moment, in order to heal the world with the truth.
Mindahi and I spent much time together, and he taught me many things as a student and guardian of the Great Mystery, a very important concept in spirituality. He helped to have me cleansed in ancient ways and unlock much of my mystical and ancient abilities.
Two years ago, he told me that there is a powerful temple in Michoacán, and we need to go make offerings to it and balance the energy. He said that it is an ancestral temperature gauge of the health of the world and that it is very sick and needs honoring.
So, during the Día de los Muertos festivities, he and I, along with a documentarian, traveled to the ancient site in the Ihuatzio Archaeological Zone to honor the sacred place—one that is at least over a thousand years old—with offerings, blessings, rituals, and prayers.
A few months later, this temple, which had stood the test of time for over 1,000 years, collapsed on its own—an apocalyptic sign to the Purépecha people.
How does that happen?
During this time, I am leading expeditions and excavations under Mindahi’s direction to help recover an ancient, secret site in the mountains of Lerma near Toluca, not far from Mexico City. This is an ancient place with unexplainable sites, artifacts, and phenomena that defy history and sometimes science.
By the way, we had a press conference when we began uncovering the site, and it was in the news and media in Mexico and Latin America, but most people in the English-speaking world have no idea what I was doing and how big it was. Our discovery is huge. Because it isn’t just one site—it’s a giant kingdom.
As I am dealing with ancient things and beginning to feel dark forces looming around me during this work, Mindahi takes me to a secret curandero known for his exorcisms using shamanic tobacco medicine on the site of the now-destroyed original pyramid of Teotihuacán.
Long story short, in the middle of the ceremony, I am burned in my chest by a cigar to scare the demons out. Burned pretty good. And by the end of the ceremony—30 minutes later—the burn was gone.
By the next week, I am hanging by a rope off the side of a mountain, being the first man lowered onto an ancient site in hundreds of years.
A site that is a secret entrance along the side of a beyond gigantic carving of a face and hand of the ancestors on the cliffside—exuding a magnetic energy that throws the electronics of the drones off so that they can’t fly too close to get a good view of what I am about to be dropped into.
As I am doing this, Mindahi is on the cliffside above in prayer, sending blessings protecting me and my mission, while I clench an amethyst amulet in my hand as an offering to the ancestors of the entrance I am about to find. (Don’t worry, I haven’t given the entrance away. It’s not where you think it is.)
Three years before that moment, I was training people to make Old Fashioneds.
These are but a few examples of experiences I have had—not even the craziest.
So, you can’t tell me magic doesn’t exist.
And the second most important lesson I learned while living outside the industry is this: personal growth happens the most when the ego dies.
My journey has been marked by a series of metaphorical and literal deaths—each one stripping away a different layer of ego, forcing me to let go of who I thought I was, to rebuild who I needed to become.
Changing my own personal alchemy.
The first “death” was when I hit rock bottom during the pandemic, a slow decline between 2019-2021 after being hacked, doxxed, falsely accused, and arrested.
I was publicly crucified, my career in ruins, and my personal life shattered.
And I couldn’t comprehend it—as I may not have done everything right, but I hadn’t done anything wrong, I felt.
It broke me down to the point where I didn’t want to live anymore, like I said before, and I began experimenting, teetering on the edge between life and death.
Hanging myself the way my hero Anthony Bourdain had done.
The only thing that made me wait was the money I had.
This was the first ego death—the loss of reputation, success, and the persona I had built.
Then, in 2022, I tested myself in a very literal, ancient way: swallowing a rosary pea, one of the most poisonous seeds on Earth, used traditionally in initiation rites.
In Central America, it is handed to you when you do something good or as a sign of good luck.
But inside is a dangerous poison, and in many cultures, they would say if you swallowed and survived, you could withstand anything.
The science is: if the shell doesn’t crack in your body, you live, but if it does crack, you die.
A game of chance.
And one day, at the end of my rope, it was a conscious confrontation with mortality, a symbolic death, knowing the risk.
I looked at my BriBri friend in the eyes and swallowed one right in front of him.
A commitment and hope to my importance to the universe.
This is not something anyone should attempt!
But it’s where my mind was.
Then I encountered an unexplained physical sickness I endured through 2022-2023—left my body covered in sores from recurring swollen lymph nodes that would burst, painful bruises that could blister, and enlarged organs, like something was trying to purge itself out of me.
Even though doctors were scaring me with ideas of plague and cancer, and none of the initial tests could figure anything out, I refused to continue seeing them and receive a Western diagnosis because, as I was taught by the elders, I should not give that sickness power or a name—it was not mine.
I accepted it as part of the transformation, another death.
And I leaned on natural ancestral medicine to heal.
Slowly, all the problems began melting away.
It has not come back since.
And in 2024, while crossing a street at night, I was in the middle of the road and heard ancient words I recognized from hearing on sacred sites—
I turned in the middle of the road to look in the direction where the words came from—
and am immediately struck by a motorcycle with no lights.
I woke up bleeding in the street, surrounded by people who thought I was dead.
Even though I could barely walk, I didn’t go to the hospital—I went back to my healers.
It took time to walk properly again, but it was the final blow I needed to wake up fully.
And it is what kept me from finally taking my life in the ritual I had planned for three years.
It happened the same week.
Each of these events—suicidal ideation, the rosary pea test, the sickness, the accident—was another burial of my ego.
It felt like the universe was systematically stripping me down, forcing me to surrender everything I clung to: identity, pride, control.
What remained was something much more powerful, humble, and real.
It wasn’t until all these versions of myself “died” that I could truly step into the role I was meant for:
To help others transcend their own ego and pain.
You mentioned studying ancient drinking rituals, ingredients, and hospitality traditions—what insights did you gain from those experiences?
Soooo much. Let’s talk about each one, one by one.
Ancient Drinking Rituals:
One of the most eye-opening realizations for me was how drinking rituals, across cultures and throughout time, share similar structures and purposes.
They’re not random—there’s a scientific and spiritual function behind each step.
The smoke may be there to keep away pests, the songs to aid in fermentation, etc.
It blew my mind when I once participated in an ancient indigenous ceremony and recognized elements that mirrored a social fraternity initiation I went through back in college.
It made me understand that the way we gather, share drinks, initiate people, celebrate, and even mourn is woven into human nature—and these rituals are there to bond us, align energy, and transfer wisdom.
There’s a reason these ceremonies exist, and they’re far older and more intentional than we tend to acknowledge.
And by studying them, we may even find elements of our unified cultural origins.
Ingredients:
Another powerful lesson I learned is that everything—every ingredient, every element—has a purpose, and we can control that purpose.
Indigenous teachings showed me that our mind plays a key role in how we interact with ingredients.
Intention transforms them.
Take this nut in Costa Rica that I do not remember the name of, but it has tiny hairs on the shell.
When the elders grow old and start losing their hair, the men cook it and wash their scalp with it, and then their hair grows back.
After studying this, you will find out that there is no scientific explanation why, besides this:
The nut has hair, so the indigenous believe it will make them grow hair—and their mind, body, and spirit are so aligned that it actually works.
The mind is a very powerful thing.
As well, you can use something to heal or harm; too much of anything becomes a poison.
It’s all about balance and purpose.
The plants, the elements—they’re not just flavors or tools.
They carry energy, medicine, and memory.
That changed how I approach ingredients behind the bar and in life.
Hospitality Traditions:
As for hospitality traditions, I discovered there are far more secrets connecting our unified global traditions than most people realize.
Whether you’re in a rainforest, a small bar in Sicily, or a tea house in Asia, there’s an underlying blueprint guiding how we serve, connect, and honor each other.
It’s almost like a hidden language, passed down ancestrally, that still whispers beneath all of our modern practices.
The deeper I dive, the more I realize hospitality is one of the oldest and most sacred forms of human connection—and it’s far more mystical and universal than we give it credit for.
Many bartenders struggle with the lifestyle—long hours, heavy drinking, burnout. Was that part of your reason for leaving?
No. But I did fall victim to some of these issues at points within my career.
Don’t get me wrong, in my younger years, I was a WILD, WILD man.
And some of these things had definitely caused me problems in the past, but by 2018, when my personal Pandora’s box of problems began to open, I had worked myself into a personal balance that I found very accommodating—although I was never happy.
When I pressed the lawsuit, I hadn’t drank in almost a year, was sleeping regularly, and gaining traction in my career.
Everything that happened made me feel like I was a victim of outrageous fortune and unpredictable circumstances.
That the universe was choosing to test me.
But towards the end of going through all these things, I definitely did start abusing myself and self-medicating.
I wasn’t handling all the weirdness well.
Everything seemed so un-understandable and bizarre.
I couldn’t compartmentalize.
So, by the time I left the industry and went into the jungles, rainforests, and deserts to be of service, I was in a very, very, very dark place—so lost, unhealthy, strung out and fat.
But these things were the aftermath, not the reasons for leaving at the time.
It’s funny too.
I was never trying to heal.
I wanted to die, like I said before.
But it was during this time of my life in service and after ceremonies of natural ancestral healing, that something in me finally clicked.
I got very sick, did a very powerful ayahuasca ceremony in preparation for an ancient site recovery expedition, and then something in me changed.
Like the universe and ancestors had granted me the permission to do my work as long as I walked in the light.
I will discuss this experience further below when I discuss the Tekmar Healing Journeys that I am hosting in Peru.
I still drink from time to time, but it’s not often at all.
Almost never.
And it’s for pleasure now, not pain.
That being said, these dangers plague the hospitality industry and must be approached with wisdom, purpose, and nobility.
Returning to the Bar Industry & New Perspectives
Now that you’re stepping back into the industry, how do you see your role differently?
I see my role now as something far deeper than when I first entered this industry.
I’m no longer here just to master the mechanics or trends of bartending, mixology, or the hospitality industry—I see myself as an ancient bridge and mystic connector between worlds, times, and people.
My purpose is to bridge the modern hospitality industry with the ancestral knowledge, sacred wisdom, and forgotten ways of being that have sustained humanity for thousands of years.
I’ve spent years working alongside indigenous leaders, elders, and healers, and I’ve witnessed firsthand how their relationship with the land, their people, and their rituals are rooted in true hospitality—a hospitality that honors life itself, not commerce, capitalism, or consumption.
So, stepping back into the bar industry, I return not just as a bartender/mixologist, but as someone who carries that responsibility to infuse what I’ve learned into every interaction.
It’s about bringing wisdom, purpose, and nobility back into a space that can too often lose sight of its deeper meaning.
I’m here to help heal, to teach, to hold space, and to remind people—whether they’re bartenders, guests, or brands—that hospitality at its core is about service to humanity, not service to excess.
You said you don’t want to be seen as “just another bartender with a liquor bottle in hand.” What’s your vision for this new chapter?
Exactly. I have no interest in being another face in the bar holding a liquor bottle for show.
That chapter has passed for me.
My vision now is shaped by the Eagle and Condor prophecy—this idea that the wisdom of the ancient world/heart (the Condor of the South) and the modern world/mind (the Eagle of the North) must come together.
I believe bartenders, mixologists, and hospitality professionals have an opportunity right now to become the living embodiment of that bridge.
To evolve past the performative aspects of bartending and step into the role of mentor, guide, and bridge to transcendence and unification of humanity.
Protectors and guardians of Mother Earth.
For me, it’s not about the drink—it’s about what happens around the drink.
I want to use this next chapter to find others who want to learn how to heal themselves first, raise their awareness, and then extend that to others.
To use their voices to guide people toward mindfulness, introduce them to ancestral knowledge, honor sacred ingredients, protect sacred lands, and become custodians of not just hospitality, but of humanity and Mother Earth.
This is the literary archetype of the hero’s journey placed within hospitality.
We’ve gone through the initiation; now it’s time to return with the knowledge and use it for the betterment of others.
That’s the kind of hospitality professional I aim to be, and the kind of leadership I want to embody.
It is time for us to embody the archetypes of the heroes the world needs right now.
How can bartenders stay mindful and balanced in an industry built on excess?
This is one of the biggest challenges—and the biggest opportunities—for bartenders today. We work in an industry built on indulgence, speed, and often excess, yet at its heart, hospitality is supposed to be about connection, care, and service to others.
The way bartenders can find balance is by making a conscious choice to put part of their life in true service to a cause higher than themselves—and dedicate themselves to that through sacrifice. To stop seeing bartending as purely transactional, and instead approach it as a craft rooted in purpose.
When you approach each shift with the intention to uplift, to offer something meaningful, to respect the people and the ingredients you work with, everything shifts. It’s not about selling more drinks; it’s about creating moments that nourish.
It means understanding that hospitality is an energy exchange. And you can’t pour from an empty cup. So bartenders need to prioritize their own wellness, their own spiritual alignment, so they’re able to show up in service—not in exhaustion or excess.
The skills we’ve learned behind the bar—reading people, creating experiences, holding space—are powerful, to say the least. But they’ve too often been used to push consumption or unreciprocated profit.
Now, it’s time to use those same skills to become true alchemists of reality. To help people reconnect, slow down, be present. To gather people en masse, but for the right reasons.
It’s about bringing back wisdom, purpose, and nobility into the role of the bartender/mixologist/hospitality professional, and shifting the focus from the product to the person, from the excess to the essence.
You mentioned the intention behind beverages—can you expand on that? How does a drink’s energy affect the person consuming it?
Absolutely. Every beverage—EVERYTHING—we create carries an energy, whether we’re conscious of it or not.It’s not just about ingredients—it’s about the intention behind every step: how the ingredients are sourced, how the drink is prepared, the mindset of the bartender while making it, and especially the environment in which it’s served.
Energy is never lost or destroyed—only transferred. So when a bartender is rushed, disconnected, or purely focused on profit, that energy subtly transfers into the drink—and the guest feels it, whether they realize it or not. Conversely, when a bartender approaches their craft with purpose, care, respect for the ingredients, and a desire to serve from a place of true hospitality, it elevates the experience for the guest in ways that go far beyond flavor.
It’s similar to ancestral traditions, where beverages weren’t just made—they were prepared ceremonially, often blessed, intended for healing, connection, or ritual. We’ve lost that mindfulness in many modern bars, but I believe there’s a return to it happening now.
When you set an intention—whether it’s to offer comfort, celebration, healing, or simply genuine care—you’re aligning the energy of the beverage with a higher purpose. And that, in turn, affects the guest’s experience on an energetic level, even if it’s subtle.
It’s not just about what’s in the glass. It’s about what’s behind the glass.
The Industry’s Future
What do you think bars and bartenders can do to elevate the experience beyond just making drinks? Do you see a shift happening in hospitality toward more mindful drinking and spiritual connection?
I see the shift happening everywhere—people are waking up. The hospitality industry needs to keep up. It’s no longer enough to simply serve a well-made drink; guests are craving something deeper. Connection. Meaning. A sense of belonging and care beyond the transactional.
To elevate the experience, bartenders need to realize they aren’t just mixing ingredients—they’re weaving stories, teaching people, setting energy, creating a space where people feel seen.
When we, as professionals, are intentional with every step—the way we source ingredients, the energy we carry behind the bar, the environment we foster—it shifts everything.
That’s the next evolution of hospitality: mindfulness and purpose embedded into service.
You referenced ancient prophecies, healing, and the power of bartenders to influence change. How do you see this playing out in today’s world?
Ernest Hemingway famously stated,
“Don’t bother with churches, government buildings, or city squares. If you want to know about a culture, spend a night in its bars.”
Throughout history, the bartender—or the figure of the person serving drink—has always been more than just a person pouring alcohol. Bars, churches, temples, even courtrooms—they’ve all shared common roots as places where people gather, exchange ideas, and recalibrate society.
Take Ernest Hemingway’s quote, or look back even further. Two thousand years ago, it was crucial to have someone who understood fermentation and could safely make wine to mix with water for sterilization. Why? Because different tribes and communities had different biological makeups, and sharing unclean water could be deadly. That person—the one who prepared and blessed the drink—literally allowed people to gather en masse, safely and in unity. Sounds a lot like Jesus, doesn’t it?
Fast forward to today: bartenders are still in a position to influence collective energy. We can be those connectors—bridging divides, unifying people, offering a moment of peace or healing amidst chaos. But it takes awareness. It takes understanding that every drink served carries not just flavor, but energy, intention, and potential impact.
That’s how we as bartenders can influence real change—not just through the craft, but through how we choose to show up in service to humanity.
Healing Journeys & Future Projects
You’ve started taking hospitality professionals to Peru for healing journeys. What does that process look like, and why do you believe it’s important?
Yes, thank you for asking about this. The Tekmar Journeys. This is something very close to my heart and a very powerful experience, but it is not for everyone—only for those who are ready to truly heal, unlock their mystical abilities, and find purpose in their lives. It is time we heal the spirits of people dealing in spirits.
The ancient term for alcohol (Al-Kuhl in Arabic) has its roots in mysticism and esotericism, and means “body-eating spirit” or “spirit that consumes the body.” This is profound to think about in our dealings with the energies of ourselves when we consume, and the energies of others when we serve. Combined with the traumas of our outside lives and the inner turmoils of our psyche, hospitality professionals are extremely susceptible to quantum energies science cannot yet explain—and sometimes it takes natural and ancestral medicines to clear our minds, bodies, and spirits.
So after years of tracking and researching ancient beverages, rituals, medicines, etc., I believe I have found the points of origin and very ancient ceremonies and lineages of healers for two of the most important natural medicines in the world today: Wachuma (San Pedro) and Ayahuasca.
As well, my work with the Eagle and Condor has allowed me to form and develop very special relationships with sacred healers, spiritual leaders, and wisdom keepers of ancient tribes—such as Antaurko Patsakamaq, the Protector of the Inkan Sacred Legacy and the Keeper of the Solar Codes, or Wanka Inti, Kuraka of the Wanka Nation and Guardian of Quechua Wisdom.
So I have put together a special journey for hospitality professionals to travel together to heal in ancient ways—with ancient medicine, in ancient places, with ancient people, and through ancient ceremonies. When we travel, I have two indigenous spiritual facilitators of Quechua and Aymara blood who help guide, protect, and keep us balanced both in transit and in ceremony, as we visit each healer in their respective homes.
All across Peru—from the Incan point of origin deep in the chilly, magical Andes Mountains to the point of origin of Ayahuasca in the unyieldingly humid Amazon—what is being respected and honored by the spiritual leaders about what we are doing is this: we are combining the medicines in unison—the sacred masculine of the mountains through Wachuma, and the sacred feminine of the valleys through Ayahuasca—with the actual sacrificial journey it takes to get there.
These are two ancient medicines that were always meant to work together.
But the journey is just as important—and that’s what we’re doing. Not a retreat. Not just an experience. But an ancient journey of healing, commitment, and sacrifice—so that the medicines truly work.
Also worth noting: we use more than just Wachuma and Ayahuasca. While they are the apex medicines of the program, we also participate in Yape, Coca, Cacao, and sometimes Kambo (frog poison) ceremonies throughout the process.
Personally, these medicines have healed me in outrageous ways. After one particularly powerful Ayahuasca ceremony, I experienced profound healing and received messages from the universe. At the time, I was battling a mysterious illness, overweight, depressed, and at the end of my rope—but after that ceremony, something shifted in my mind, body, and spirit.
Without consciously deciding, I suddenly began fasting for 20 hours a day and exercising. I felt driven. Within six months, I was happy, healthy, 65 pounds lighter, and leading expeditions with Toltec councils to explore Atlantean sites.
But what truly excites me about this journey and the program I’ve created is seeing the transformation in the participants. Again, this isn’t for everyone. If you’re looking just to “get high,” it will be the worst experience of your life. But if you’re dedicated and ready for true change, this journey will create a revolution in your life—a liberation of your heart and soul.
Dean Serneels, the man who invented the FlairCo bottle, producer and star of the new documentary on flair, Shaken & Stirred, and founder of the Flair Bartenders Association (and a barman you should definitely interview), was a participant in the last journey I hosted this January.
He came to me months before, at the end of his own rope, seeking change and liberation in his life. He told me he wanted to understand what God was—and to feel again. Dean was the perfect participant. Watching his transformation, and his continued growth since, fills me with pride and joy.
During ceremony, I witnessed him come as close to God as he’s been in a very, very long time. I felt it. And he’s told me the same. These experiences are powerful and profound. And now that he’s begun to see his own light, he will soon assist in helping others find theirs—and eventually become a facilitator in ancient ceremonies himself.
I love Dean with all my heart, and I’m proud to call him a brother. Dean is a Jaguar Warrior, and now… he knows it. This is the way of the ancient medicines—and of the Eagle and Condor.
Now, I’m looking for those in the hospitality industry who are ready to heal, raise their vibration and awareness, and learn the ancient sciences and mysteries the Indigenous are ready to share. Those who feel called to become bridges and guides in humanity’s transcendence.
We can do this—by utilizing the very skills we’ve developed as hospitality professionals and bartenders—to become true alchemists of reality.
This is the Great Work.
And the Tekmar Journey is ready to assist.
What’s next for you—any projects, collaborations, or appearances you can share?
The universe is being very kind to me, and I feel incredibly blessed with some fascinating projects currently in the works and others on the horizon. That said, I’m still 100% looking to fill my time with even more collaborations—projects driven by people who know they’re here to change or even save the world through the hospitality and beverage industry.
So consider this my open call for meaningful partnerships and visionary ideas.
Honestly? I need to make some money right now to continue fueling my philanthropic efforts. Let’s build something together that matters.
But currently, I have some really cool stuff in the works. The main ones include:
TV Show – I’m collaborating with the same producer I worked with on Bar Rescue and Drink Masters on a new show concept I created. It blends international native beverages with social impact issues and explores humanity’s cultural unification. Think of it as an Anthony Bourdain-style journey, but through the lens of drinks, rituals, and the deeper meaning behind them. I’ll be hosting, and we’re currently shopping it to networks and sponsors.
Bartender Competition – I’m partnering with the historic Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, to host a national bartending competition focused on storytelling. This isn’t just about technique—it’s about finding the best bartender/mixologist in the West who can craft an unforgettable experience through their drinks and the stories behind them.
Project in Sicily – This year, I’ve made some truly incredible friends in Sicily, and I’ll be working with them to reprogram and refresh a bar concept in Catania. But that’s just the beginning. We have other special plans for the area, and we’re looking at ways to evolve mixology there in a way that honors both tradition and innovation.
Expedition in Mexico – Philanthropy and service to greater causes, mainly the Eagle and Condor Prophecy, remain the most important part of my life. So, every project I take on in hospitality, beverages, or television is ultimately a means to continue my mission to help protect and preserve sacred knowledge.
For the past few years, I’ve been working behind the scenes, recovering ancient, secret, sacred, and archaeological sites of knowledge for indigenous leaders. In October 2023, I led an expedition and excavation of an ancient site—one that the Toltec believe to be Atlantean—and what we discovered there was beyond anything we expected. Now, I need to raise funds and lead the next expeditions to return and secure the ancient entrances to what we found.
Consulting, Creating, and Collaborating Company
Hit me up!
Immersive Experiences – Adventure/Immersive Tourism is a growing trend, and I realize that my past experiences and connections through my travels and work—whether for research, business, or in service—have become a very valuable commodity to expand upon in this sector. And I can do them in ways that give back to the local communities, support much-needed philanthropic efforts or causes, or put money directly back into the hands of the indigenous leaders who really need it right now to protect their communities and unite the world while introducing and educating outsiders about other cultures.
So, on top of the healing journey in Peru, you will find me hosting immersive beverage experiences with the indigenous in Costa Rica (and soon Kenya), and next I’ll be announcing a mixology experience across Sicily with my new partners there.
Check out my social media for announcements of what we are doing if you’re interested in coming. Some are geared toward hospitality professionals, while others are for those who just want to enjoy themselves and are fans of beverages, spirituality, and/or culture.
Mamos to France – I have been entrusted by the sacred Mamos, the Indigenous leaders of the Arhuaco community of Colombia, to help them get to France on a mission to activate a mystical location we’ve helped them identify—one they say has a direct, secret connection to a sacred site and intersection in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I’m hoping I can facilitate this assistance with the help of the beverage industry and its brands. Let’s see if it works. I have high hopes.
Warriors of the Rainbow 3.5 – Last year, I had the absolute honor of speaking at the United Nations’ University of Peace Earth Charter Conference. The subject of my speech was an Indigenous prophecy called the Warriors of the Rainbow, which works in alignment with the Eagle and Condor prophecy. It speaks of a time when the world would be sick and dying—requiring mystic people from the colors and corners of the earth to rise up and assist Indigenous communities in bringing back the ancient mystical ways that can help unite humanity.
I am a Warrior of the Rainbow.
At the conference, I had the privilege of meeting best-selling author Grian Cutanda, who has developed a powerful and detailed plan to unite the Warriors of the Rainbow and help shift the collective consciousness of the world. His strategy is rooted in the idea that if 3.5% of a population participates in a protest or movement, it is guaranteed to bring about social or political change.
We plan to use this to peacefully address economic, ecological, environmental, and extinction-level threats.
We are currently uniting people across the globe, and I will be starting the first Hospitality Tribe of the Warriors of the Rainbow next month. If this speaks to you—you know where to find me.
Lastly, I think it may be time for a book
If you could give one piece of advice to bartenders looking for deeper meaning in their craft, what would it be?
I am gonna take the liberty to give three pieces of advice.
First, study intention and recognize that it is the key to every action. Impact matters, but there is no impact that isn’t shaped by intention.
Many years ago, Japanese mixologists came to the United States, not just to showcase their technical precision and the heart-shaped shake, but to share deeper, ancient sciences of hospitality. However, I believe the most profound lesson they brought with them was the same one found in The Hidden Messages in
Water by Masaru Emoto. His studies had a lasting impact on how Japanese mixologists viewed and explained their philosophy on ice.
Emoto was a Japanese researcher who explored how human consciousness affects water. His work suggests that water molecules change their structure based on words, emotions, and intentions. In Masaru Emoto’s ice experiment, water that was exposed to positive words, prayers, and harmonious music formed intricate, symmetrical, and aesthetically beautiful ice crystals when frozen. In contrast, water exposed to negative words, insults, or discordant music formed irregular, chaotic, and fractured crystals. His findings suggested that water—being a fundamental element of life—responds to human consciousness, intention, and energy, reinforcing the idea that our thoughts and emotions can physically influence the world around us. While controversial in the scientific world, his ideas align with ancient wisdom—suggesting that water, the essence of life, holds memory and responds to energy. Whether science backs it or not, it’s a powerful metaphor for how intention shapes reality. He also did the same type of experiments with rice and fermentation, in which he showed that the control that was ignored—meaning no energy was directed to it—became more putrid than the rest.
But unfortunately, he was laughed at by mainstream science. Scientists demanded to see the experiments done in the same room as Emoto, not understanding that it was his balanced Taoist philosophy that allowed him to do the experiments—and that even others being in the same room, with their own energies and intentions, would affect the controls and the results.
Now apply this same ancient, misunderstood quantum science to the indigenous tribes of the world—like the rainmakers of Mexico or, for example, the Mamos of the Kogi and Arhuaco of Colombia. Some of these sacred classes of people are chosen at birth and raised in caves for the first dozen or so years of their lives, never seeing light so that the pineal glands of their brains grow larger than any other humans. They are only visited by their mothers to be fed, and by other Mamos to be trained. When they are finally brought out of the cave, it is only at night—and only while blindfolded—to bathe.
They say when these people see the light for the first time and witness the world around them at the end of their training, they are filled with the purest love for everything they see, leading them to carry the purest intentions any human can have.
The rainmakers of Mexico train in much the same way.
And here’s the quantum science of it all: when you gather wisdom keepers and elders of people like this together and unite their pineal glands through ancient ritual—through music or medicine—and then direct their intention toward something like a cloud, they can affect the water in that cloud’s vapor and its fractalization, actually causing it to rain.
Raindances work—with the right intention.
So do not deny how much your intention can affect the water and all liquids that you, as a bartender, mixologist, or other hospitality professional—and your tools—handle. And the quantum reverberations your intentions can have on others as preparers and servers of drinks that our guests put into their bodies. This is sacred quantum science just now beginning to be understood, but never forgotten by the indigenous and spiritual leaders of the world.
Second piece of advice: understand your importance as a bartender, mixologist, or other hospitality professional to society. Throughout history, this was a sacred job. The bar was the BARricade in the pub or public house, which would also be known as a church, temple, or courtroom. Churches call the bar an altar and the barback an acolyte. In many cultures and spiritualities, there is very little difference between a bartender and a priest, by gathering people in mass, as we spoke of before. Hemingway was right.
But bars have also always been important places of balance and peace during times of war. Years ago, I was working on a show concept called The Most Dangerous Bars in the World. It took me down a rabbit hole of studying a place called the Locked and Loaded Bar at the Baghdad Country Club, in the Safe Zone of Iraq during the war. (Check out my Instagram Instagram if you want to see a photo of one of the hats of the bar that I secured from the security detail of Biden when he was Vice President and visited the location for negotiations.)
Throughout time, every war had secret bars in the center of the warzones, in safe zones. Bars for peace—where borders didn’t matter. Places where any politician, spy, mercenary, spiritual leader, etc., could go without weapons and be protected. Where the true negotiations of war and peace happened.
And the bar keepers of these bars for peace have been so important throughout time—sought after to be manipulated and controlled by outside sources. The barkeepers could send messages in drinks, like the ale flips with their loggerheads used as weapons, and secret coded recipes that could activate secret societies to fight one another and turn the tides of war. So the intention of the barkeeper, combined with an ancient duty, makes this job very, very sacred—and so are our spirits.
Understand the importance of spirit and the energy of our intentions. They are sacred. And so can our jobs be, as hospitality professionals, if we treat them as such.
Lastly, please, for the love of all that is holy, ask why? Asking why will help you know how to wade through the bullshit, regulate yourself, and stay humble by not letting yourself drink your own Kool-Aid, therefore keeping your ego in check. You will have to trust me on these things. I made the mistakes. I drank my own Kool-Aid while riding the gravy train the world was feeding me, and I became a cocky asshole, something that I spent many years to retroact so that I could return to the hospitality industry in humility. But when we honestly ask ourselves why about the situations and truths being presented to us and/or to our own thoughts and actions of the world around us, and answer it honestly, we gain a much better alignment and understanding of our environment mixed with a truer acknowledgment of self.
But let me give you one major example of a reason we should always ask why? This is something I have researched and fought for in various ways for years, and upon my return to the industry, it has become my personal mission to work with leaders of the original people of the world to change something that has been in front of our eyes for centuries—something that needs to be stopped immediately. For the energy of our industry, for humanity, and for the world.
By the way, if these words speak to you and this is a project you would like to be a part of, please reach out to me at Wishka@Wishka.org.
Here it is…
What is the symbol of hospitality?
The pineapple.
Why?
The answer isn’t as sweet as the fruit itself.
In fact, it’s very, very bitter.
The pineapple became the symbol of hospitality not because it inherently represented welcome, generosity, or care—but because it was a colonial trophy and a symbol of conquest.
Historically, the pineapple is indigenous to Central and South America, cultivated and revered by native communities for centuries before European colonizers arrived. But when Europeans first encountered the pineapple, they didn’t see a cultural staple—they saw wealth, control, and exclusivity. It became a status symbol of power, flaunted by aristocrats, often never consumed, just displayed to showcase dominion over land, trade, and people.
Fast forward to today, and pineapples are still linked to exploitation. Many modern plantations sit on stolen indigenous land, poisoning rivers, displacing communities, and even threatening the lives of activists fighting for their ancestral rights.
Yet, the hospitality industry has embraced the pineapple as its symbol—slapping it on logos, menus, tiki mugs, and tattoos without questioning its true legacy.
That’s why this conversation is too big to fit into one interview.
➡ A full article breaking down the history, the ongoing impact, and what we as an industry can do will be published soon.
Because if hospitality is truly about welcome and care, then it’s time to ask ourselves: Are we honoring that meaning—or blindly upholding a relic of conquest?
(Stay tuned for the full article!)
Finally, what does the name “WISHKA” mean to you?
It’s crazy to think that Wishka is the only name I have heard or gone by for the past three years, even though it was given to me six years ago. People have told me lately that sometimes I don’t even answer to Russell anymore. It has been surreal hearing my real name again in conversations with old friends, fans, and colleagues I’ve finally reconnected with—some don’t even know what to call me anymore.
To the Tsimari Cabécar of Costa Rica, who call themselves the first people, the name Wishka means “Cat.” It was given to me because I had the first blue eyes the children there had ever seen and because, when I walk through the rainforest, I go barefoot. My pinky toe moves a bit differently than most people’s—anyone I’ve met or can find, actually. It pivots and helps me balance, especially on wet ground, which they also thought made me look like a cat when I walked.
So the children and the community started calling me the Cabécar word for cat—Wishka—while I was there studying ancient drinking culture. That work turned into service, including helping to build a bridge over dangerous waters in the rainforest and aiding in the delivery of necessary vaccines, both done in an effort to save the lives of the children of the tribe. At great risk, I helped pressure the government to deliver those vaccines, and I personally helped walk the doctors and supplies out myself.
The white man with blue eyes they call Cat.
On my last night in Tsimari, I heard growling under my mattress pad while sleeping in a hut near the village school.I jumped up, thinking it was a jaguar—but it was actually a pregnant cat that had climbed next to me for warmth. She had two baby kittens while I was sleeping. I had to leave at sunrise for the dangerous trek through the jungle back to civilization before the children saw the kittens and knew what had happened. But later, the local teacher told me that the children all believe I am a magical entity now—and they named the two kittens Russell and Davis. That was six years ago.
To me, the name Wishka is a symbol of my transcendence and evolution. It’s funny—Russell is a very hard name for many indigenous people around the world, from Africa to Asia, to pronounce correctly. Russell. And maybe it was the universe speaking through their voices, but as I was working with these first original people of the world, deep in the rainforest and jungles, when they tried to say Russell, somehow it always sounded like Asshole.
That had to be the universe, right?
So I welcomed the name Wishka—at the same time that the spiritual leaders of the world embraced me, the rest of the world was crucifying Russell. And it fit. Because when I introduce myself as Wishka, people always say, “Like whiskey?!” I laugh and give them a slick Texan cowboy wink as my answer, in the style only a charming bartender could pull off.
I was always more of a dog person anyway.
The name Wishka has also become a personal auspice—a sign from the universe that I’m on the right path. It has guided me to ancient secrets and places, including indigenous lineages connected to the original alchemists who created the water of life for ancient tribes—people who worked in alignment with the Pleiades.
There are actually significant secrets tied to this name and my mission—connections between Wishka, the real ‘stinky waters’ of whiskey, and the word ‘uisge.’ But I don’t have the time or space to explain it all in this interview, so I digress.
Recently, the sacred Maestro Flores of the Shipibo-Conibo people of Peru elevated my name to Whiskamby, which means “Man Who Has Traveled Far.” I find it funny that I received this name in the same time frame that I’ve been returning to being Russell as well. And, mysteriously, it sounds like “uisge beatha.”
Gifts from the universe.
We always return to origin. Always.
And it is how I fuse who I was and who I have become that will define what I do for the world (and the hospitality, beverage, and bar industry) next.
The man who has traveled far returns to his roots.
But now, I am changed.
I am trained, cleansed, blessed, initiated, and ready.
I have truly served, and I live in true service.
I am Wishka.
And also Russell.
And yes, sometimes, I can be an asshole too.
But most of all, I am here to be a beacon of light in dark places,
To raise the vibration of humankind,
And to be a bridge to healing and transcendence
Through empathy, courage, and love.
Feel free to call me whatever you like.
I am here. And that’s the way it is.
Kjamadi.
Halli!
“Success is never final and failure never fatal. It’s courage that counts.”
— George F. Tilton
I dedicate this interview to Ancient Shinto Master Ken “Masaaki Nagai” Kitatani and Toltec Ceremonial Master Mindahi Crescencio Bastida, both esteemed members of the Grand Council of Earth Elders of the Eagle and Condor. Most importantly, I also dedicate it to “The Mermaid,” my Muse. Without your love, support, and light, I would not have found the strength or inspiration to answer these questions.
Disclaimer: The views, opinions, and personal experiences expressed in this interview are solely those of Russell Davis, also known as Wishka. They do not necessarily reflect the views, beliefs, or positions of this publication or its editorial team. This content is shared as part of an open and honest dialogue intended for informational and storytelling purposes only.
