Indigenous Empowerment in the Drink and Hospitality Industry with Chockie Tom

Cocktails & Capitalism

We’re joined by Chockie Tom, who works to increase Indigenous visibility and empowerment in the drink and hospitality industry. Chockie’s advocacy efforts are deeply tied to her Pomo and Walker River Paiute heritage. As a bartender, consultant, and occasional brand ambassador, she has striven to increase Native involvement in the industry while helping people navigate this space for harm reduction. She helps bars and brands avoid cultural appropriation, promoting cultural appreciation and exchange while offering ways that businesses can give back to communities affected by colonization. Chockie even organized and moderated the very first Indigenous-led panel for Tales of the Cocktail, which you can watch on YouTube.

Chockie is one of the co-founders of Doomersive – a decolonial cocktail program that challenges and subverts tiki culture. They’ve hosted tropical/immersive cocktail pop-ups in New York and London that substitute doom metal and satanic iconography in place of the racist appropriation and hypersexualization of Pacifica women that normally characterize the Tiki aesthetic. She even includes a “fundraging” aspect to this work, redirecting some of the money raised at these tropical ragers to support communities that have been negatively impacted by colonization.

Follow Chockie Tom on Instagram @chocktails and on Twitter @chocktailsnyc
You can support her work though PayPal and Venmo
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