Fill Your Heart By Filling Your Liquor Cabinet

Lately I’ve been thinking about the expression, “Give ‘til it hurts.” It’s not generally a command I condone, given that it brings to my mind a nefarious pastor guilting his financially struggling flock into giving up their kids’ school books for his wife’s Christmas Cadillac. 

But the business owners I list below give new meaning to the phrase. Many alcohol producers, especially the smaller ones, are hurting terribly this year because of the pandemic. But these philanthropists are still giving — giving up profits, giving to others, giving of themselves — despite the greater-than-usual sacrifice. 

If you’re buying alcohol this month for the holiday season or for any reason, really, consider sharing your dollars with these businesses. They’ll be sharing them in kind. 

BEER

CANarchy Craft Brewery Collective: Canarchy, which counts Oskar Blues, Cigar City and Three Weavers as members, will match all donations up to $25,000 to Can’d Aid, a national nonprofit organization they support, on Tuesday. So you can donate to purchase art kits, bikes, skateboards and more for kids in need, OR you can buy your own package of supplies from Can’d Aid and assemble and deliver one of these toys yourself. So far in 2020, Can’d Aid has donated 1,1770 skateboards, 543 bikes and 713 art and school supply kits.

Crooked Stave: Former craftbeer.com editor Andy Sparhawk emailed me with a detailed personal story about his very dear, very tall friend Joe, who committed suicide this year after fighting depression for most of his life. Andy, who’s now working with his besties at Crooked Stave after getting laid off by the Brewers Association a few months ago, says that the brewery (whose owners were also close with Joe), has brewed its first batch of Italian-style pilsner, Compagno Alto, to honor their 6’5” Italian buddy and donate its proceeds to the Step Up program Joe helped facilitate for struggling high schoolers. They plan to donate proceeds from the next batch to an as-yet-undetermined suicide prevention program.

Sierra Nevada Brewing: My ex used to say that every time someone drinks a Sierra Pale Ale a puppy gets adopted. He’s not far off. In its latest grand contribution to the world, the California/North Carolina brewery is donating $1 million to fight food insecurity this year using proceeds from sales of its new Dankful IPA. The benevolent brewery will partner with a different non-profit each quarter; so far they’ve given $250,000 to one of my own favorite charities, Chef Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen, which is putting food preparers back to work by making meals for first responders and families adversely affected by COVID.

Broken Goblet Brewing: Boston metal band Unearth has made its first beer, with suburban Philadelphia brewery and music venue Broken Goblet, which is donating all proceeds to the Boston and Philly chapters of the ACLU to identify and end racial inequality. Black Hearts Now Reign is a Russian Imperial Stout brewed with white chocolate. 

SPIRITS

Hennessy: After a recent donation of $1 million, the Cognac company has brought its total investment in Unfinished Business — an initiative introduced in June 2020 to help Black, Asian and Latinx owned small businesses with the financial and educational resources needed to surmount COVID — to $4 million. Hip hop performer Nas has pledged to help Hennessy continue raising money for Unfinished Business, which distributed the liquor brand’s first contribution as grants to 1,250 small BIPOC businesses around the country.

Patron: This fall, the extraordinarily generous tequila company debuted the More Than Tequila Music Series as a benefit concert on Instagram Live to give Black artists a platform to gain exposure and have a conversation about what community means to them in today’s culture. The virtual series drives donations to the “Backing the B.A.R.” grant program between Patron’s parent company, Bacardi, and the NAACP to provide the resources needed to promote racial equity in the bar and restaurant industry. On December 1, 6LACK and three up-and-coming Black artists — Mereba, Kitty Ca$h and BRS Kash — perform.

Blackened: Metallica’s whiskey brand helps the band’s All Within My Hands foundation hum along more smoothly in its efforts to support workforce education, the fight against hunger and other local services. Through December, the musicians will donate $5 from every bottle sale to the foundation. Fans can enter to win an autographed guitar or drumhead by uploading a picture of their receipt to the website.

Proper No. Twelve: MMA fans probably already know that fighter Conor McGregor launched this Irish whiskey in 2018 as what his marketing team calls “the most impactful launch within the spirits category ever” in what may or may not be the kind of hype typically practiced by the professional wrestling industry. What they may not know is that McGregor donates $5 per case to first responder organizations, up to $1 million annually. All proceeds from a specially designed T-shirt add to his donation. His biggest beneficiary to date has been the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation.

WINE

Tank Garage Winery - Despite its location in Calistoga, the town that bore the brunt of Napa Valley’s latest horrific wildfires, Tank Garage continues to support all sorts of charitable community programs by donating $1 from every bottle sold from its Tank Cares series to the organization denoted on its label. This year’s new designee — and Giving Tuesday’s featured partner — is the California state parks system; last year the winery raised $20,000 for Black Lives Matter and half-a-dozen other causes.

MYSA Natural Wine: This wine online wine boutique has teamed up with Wonder Women of Wine, which aims to promote gender equality in the wine industry, to produce biodynamic wines sold in kits that lend 10% of their profits to Wonder Women of Wine’s scholarship fund. Various kits are available; the tier 1 Wine Night In kit contains three wines, swag and a virtual tasting led by an advanced (female) sommelier.

Sonoma Cutrer: Sales of Russian River Ranches Chardonnay 2018 directly support Sonoma-Cutrer’s $100,000 donation to the Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation, an advocacy and action nonprofit created by and for restaurant workers. 

MISC

Pink Boots Society: A donation to Pink Boots won’t get a bottle of booze to show up at your door but it will get you a tax write-off and a meaningful contribution to the women who make the booze you drink. Though donations, the international non-profit awards dozens of academic scholarships a year to women working in all aspects of alcohol and alcohol-adjacent production, sales and marketing. The 13-year-old group has just expanded beyond beer to include people who identify as women in all alcohol categories. You can also support Pink Boots every time you shop Amazon AMZN by logging into www.smile.amazon.com and designating it as your charity.

Drizly: On Giving Tuesday, the alcohol delivery service is donating 10% of all proceeds to Resilient Coders, an organization that builds greater access to the tech economy for youth from traditionally underserved communities by training them for careers as software engineers and linking them to jobs.

Local Roots Kombucha: This Southern California hard kombucha company is donating $5 from every Giving Tuesday order to Father Joe's Villages to support its mission to end homelessness. Throughout December, Father Joe’s will receive a portion of sales from Local Roots’ “holiday bundle,” containing six cans of Strawberry Mojito, six cans of Cali Mule and a pair of holiday long socks.

Summit Seltzer: Right before Summit opened in September in Charlotte, North Carolina, a close friend of the owner passed away at age 27. The friend, named Charlotte, loved to drink sake and read. Toast to Charlotte blueberry raspberry acai purple haze seltzer not only commemorates her but benefits the local children’s literacy organization Read Charlotte with 5% of its sales.