BECAUSE YOU NEEDED MORE OPINIONS FROM THE INTERNET

Hey gang.

In an effort to force myself to write again, and to infect the internet with my nonsense, I have started a blag.

I just picked some colors that I kind of like, but, lets be real- the blag layout is probably hideous. Sorry.

Anyway, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Justin Vann. On the twitters, I'm @Whiskyplz. I'm 26, and I'm the beer and wine manager at Central Market in Houston TX. I'm an advanced sommelier, a certified wine educator, certified specialist of spirits, and recently, a certified cicerone (I enjoy mispronouncing it to sound like chicharones). I also recently failed the Master Sommelier Exam for my first time. It was an honor to even be let in the building, and I will be back. Don't worry if you don't know exactly what those are or how they're different. It just means I really like taking tests about alcohol. I have a little pin that I can put on my lapel for each of those distinctions. I keep them all in a little Del Maguey clay mezcal cup. I'm told I'm too modest, and that I should indulge in a little self promotion occasionally. We'll just say I'm covering that by assuming the internet wants to hear what I have to say.

Oftentimes I think of stuff that I wish I could tell people, and I think "Dang, it would be so convenient if I had a blag. I should get me one of those." Here it is.

SO

Enough introductions. What did you want to talk about Justin? Thanks for asking, internet:

The first time you start getting interested in wine, they call it "the wine bug". You go about your day and think about stuff, but your mind keeps drifting back to wine. What does this taste like? Why do they make it this way? What food would this go good with? You ponder these things out loud and it annoys the shit out of everyone around you. You forget about it for a day or two, then you find you've lost 4 hours in a Barnes & Noble because you've been reading The Oxford Companion to Wine.

You have the wine bug. So itchy.

I became afflicted with said bug around 21. Maybe a year and a half after that, I got the liquor bug. I bought a bunch of cocktail books and I spent tons of money I didn't have on damn near everything. I frequently tell people I drank fernet branca before it was cool to do so. Unfortunately, that just means I wasn't cool when I was drinking fernet branca. Oh well. I even went to bartending school, before I was smart enough to realize its a scam. Never did get to be a bartender, but my friends and I threw some rad parties with our newfound ability to make grasshoppers, rusty nails, harvey wallbangers, and other underaged drinking throwup-causers.

Got to be a sommelier at the probably way too early age of 22. Got to be a wine director after that. I jumped the restaurant ship last year in lieu of retail paradise: Central Market. Back at Brand X, I had responsibility for like 25 beers total. Most of them were adjunct lagers. I arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed at CM, took one look at the 500 beers on one wall, and quickly realized I didn't know anything about beer. Had to fix this. Can't sell a product I know nothing about.

I drank a lot of beer at Agora when I was in highschool. But I didn't bother to remember what any of it tasted like, or where it came from, or how it was made.

I started studying beer out of a sense of duty to know about what pays my bills. But quickly I found myself really digging deep. How is this dumb beer made? Why does it work with the foods it works with? I begrudgingly found myself enjoying learning a lot about beer. I signed up for the Certified Cicerone exam on a whim, and actually passed. It was a hard test, and it reminded me a lot of the wine tests I've taken in the past. I wondered all kinds of beer questions out loud, and it annoyed the shit out of everyone around me.

So that was last year. I took the MS exam since. For those not in the know, the MS exam is the most respected wine test in the world. Fewer than 200 people have ever passed it. Its the furthest career goal I have in this world, and its probably a little foolish of me to assume that all my problems will go away when (if) I get that gold and red pin.

Wine is what pays my bills. Wine is what makes the majority of the money at all the places I've worked, CM included.

I'm studying for the MS exam again. I have a better idea of what to expect, and I'm studying accordingly. Not as hard as I should be, but hey, I'm easing my foot back in the water.

What is honest to god freaking me out, dear internet, is that while all logic dictates that I should be daydreaming about wine, I'm not. I'm thinking about beer.

Fucking beer. Why? I don't know. I'm a somm. I'm not supposed to care about beer this much.

Let me say that its not hard for me to pick my favorite child: wine. So much. I love the hell out of wine. But I'm also struggling to contain my enthusiasm for beer. My professional friends notice. "You won't like this, it's not beer." Who doesn't like jokes? But I get nervous. Part of a reason I started this blag is to talk out my alcohol identity crisis. It's clear to me that I'm being judged to various degrees for my newfound love of beer. Best case scenario people think I'm going through a phase. Worst case scenario they think I've given up on wine. Come on people.

I talk to beer people about wine. I talk to wine people about beer. It makes my head want to explode. I think what I'm starting to see is that both sides feel certain things are given that the other side doesn't. Maybe only one side is right (beer WAS discovered first, pat yourselves on the back) but I feel like there are far fewer certainties in the discussion of beer and wine than both sides are objective enough to admit.

And hey, I'll admit I'm not objective either. But I'm not satisfied with the discussion of wine, beer, and liquor in the context of one another. So you see, internet, this is why I've chosen to barf my opinion all over you. Sorry. *dabs with napkins*

That's probably enough for now. I look forward to sharing too much about myself under the guise of talking about alcohol. Buh bye now.