REVIVING GOOD 
SPIRITS
Turns out, Jarrett loves everything about the science, 
mystique, ingredients, presentation, good humor and social 
fabric of the apéritif, digestif, and everything in between. 
Appealing to the nose and proclivities of the PD membership 
is the pin for Kristina and her team of 13 bartenders. 
Innovation is simply the cart path to get there. Which takes us 
a little bit back to Jake and his genius. 
“The hardest part of this,” she says, “is accommodating the 
different taste buds of the membership. Like sweet? Don’t 
like sweet?” From Executive Chef Carr’s world in the kitchen 
to the bar, she says, everyone on the PD staff is trained to 
think about everyone. Here, she credits her mentor, Calloway 
Kocher, who, she says, is always in Jarrett’s — and the 
F&B team’s — corner and superbly good at coaching and 
challenging to excellence. “She lets you grow. She’s like, 
‘Okay, here it is. Now, what do you want to do with it?’” The 
answer, however, must always lead to what’s on the menu 
for the pleasure of the membership.
Most of Kristina’s life has been about what’s on the menu. 
She’s been in service and hospitality her entire life. Both 
sets of grandparents owned bar and grill operations, so she 
learned to buss tables and stepped into her first waitressing 
job at 14, when she wasn’t yet old enough to have a job. She 
fell in love with the hospitality business: server to bartender 
to manager ... always ending up managing, she tells us. She 
came to Prairie Dunes for the first time in 1998 in the same 
way, adding beverage cart server to her service resume, and 
left, in 2003, in the same way: as assistant dining manager. 
After a hiatus — during which she never gave up working 
private bartending events at night while working professional 
day jobs, including a stint as a debt collector — she returned 
to the Dunes as dining room manager in March 2025. She 
says she learned, definitively during the pandemic, that she 
thrives on being around people.
“Managing the floor, I continue to focus our team, every day, 
on delivering hospitality at the right level. We’ve brought on a 
few more managers to allow me to focus on the bar, which is 
my true passion.”
Beyond the merch it has inspired, and not accounting 
for Golf Digest readers, Gunch Punch has lit up the 
map. “A year after it came out, I got a phone call while 
I was working from a guest of a member,” Jake tells us. 
“They both live in California. He said, ‘I told my wife 
about Gunch Punch, and she wants to be able to make 
it at home. Will you help her over the phone?’ She was 
even ready with a frozen slushy machine. 
“We’ve had people make it for parties. We know it’s in 
Houston and the Galveston area. It’s in Florida. Locals 
here are making it for parties.” Not a guy to be shaken, 
he laughs, “I help them with the recipe, improvising 
based on how big of a machine they use.”
Want to raise a glass to Jake? Make it a protein shake.
EVERYONE 
KNOWS JAKE
Gunch Punch is made with Tito’s vodka, sweet & sour 
mix, cranberry juice, and 7UP or Sprite. Prairie Dunes 
serves it all year, inside and out. To the one ordering it, 
Jake Justice gives two disclaimers: “It’s a slushy. If you 
drink it too fast, you’ll get brain freeze. And it’s sneaky 
strong.” Prairie Dunes is not overserving it, he says. “The 
sneaky part is that it tastes so good everyone wants two.”
The bar team will make Gunch Punch on the rocks, if 
asked, using the original percentages of ingredients. 
Its color, according to its author, is completely different 
when you do a batch. He likes it when it comes out more 
red than pink.
17

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