I’ve always enjoyed a good tipple.
Maybe it’s my 64% Scottish and Irish lineage. 89% if you add in the beer-guzzling Germanic regions. 96% with my Viking heritage.
I even wrote a sonnet and submitted it to a contest by Guinness to win a trip to Ireland.
Come hither to me and be my beer,
and we shall at the others sneer.
That Whisky, Wine, and juniper fields,
Rum, or aged brandy never yields.
And there I will sit near Castlemaine,
and tipple your topaz with a silver stein.
I didn’t win that contest. Nor did I win a free trip to Ireland.
But years later, I ended up getting plenty of “free” trips there as an airline pilot.
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Then came 2020.
Stuck in my one-room mini studio, I didn’t want to just sit there and drink my way to the other side of it. So I started taking classes—lots of them—while enjoying cocktails in my pandemic-forced isolation.
I’d visited a bar in London a few times on my trips across the pond, and their bartender – well-known on the London scene – started offering virtual cocktail classes.
Because of the 5-hour time difference, my Friday night cocktail hour started at 2pm East Coast time in my one-room kitchen/office/living room/bedroom.
The classes started foundational: Classic Gin Cocktails, Classic Vodka drinks, Classic Whisky mixes. He soon expanded his offerings: holiday-themed, Tiki, cocktails through the ages, modern riffs, even the Queen’s favorites.
After a couple dozen classes, I wanted more.
I found a local winery doing virtual wine tastings. Then breweries with beer clubs that included virtual educational tasting events. Then a monthly Amaro club with six curated Amaros, including cocktail fixings we’d shake and sip together during our monthly Zoom.
It was fun. It was social. It was delicious.
But it was just drinking.
I wanted the what, why, and how.
The art and science behind what was in my glass.
I found a local Wine School—one of the few in the U.S. certified by the Wine & Spirits Education Trust (WSET) – one of the top accrediting bodies in the world.
I signed up for the WSET Level 1 Certification in Wine, thinking that would be enough. It was one of the first things I attended in-person after the couple years of Covid lockdown.
But it wasn’t enough.
Before I knew it, I was enrolling in the next level. And the next. I could blame it on the wine, but education has always been my real addiction.
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Fast forward a few years, and I’ve completed WSET’s International Diploma in Wine—Level 4. Nearly four years of studying vineyard management, grape varieties, climate, soil, wine law, the global business… and, of course, a lot of tasting.
I didn’t graduate with distinction.
But I’ve always had a knack for translating complex, technical ideas into something people can actually understand—and enjoy.
Across aviation, education, policymaking, and social services, I’ve taught a lot of subjects. Breaking things down into bite-sized, practical insights? That’s my thing.
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That’s what this is.
A place where I’ll share vineyard visits, bottles I feel are worth opening (or not), and the occasional dive into things like acid levels and tannins.
And while I still prefer a super bitter hoppy IPA (shhhh…don’t tell my glass of wine!), wine has become an integral part of my drinking life.
Drinks, stories, and a better understanding of what’s in your glass.
Let’s shake, pour, and sip together!
Vin There, Drank That 