I left university with not much to shout about apart from a confusion as to why on earth people drank the stuff that passed as beer 'down-south.' Before moving to the Midlands from Yorkshire I'd never felt the need to drink lager, as far as I was concerned there were two types of beer; mild and bitter - but what passed for the latter in Brum at the time rarely made the grade, even for a not overly picky student wallet/palate.
I ended up working in pubs in Nottingham closely followed by Australia, where, due to a making the mistake of knowing how to work a till system, I had to do a shift on my own in a bottle shop on a Sunday morning. I was bribed with malt whisky, but still had no idea whatsoever about what I was selling. Luckily nobody came in to cruelly expose my lack of knowledge so I remained unscathed.
Having resolved to learn something about wine once back in the UK I ended up managing another pub and discovered the joys of Belgian beer instead. Not to be foiled, once life took me to London I started work all keen and bright-eyed in Oddbins, a month before scurrying off to New Zealand and dragging my girlfriend and best mate round as many vineyards as I could convince them to tag along to. By this time I was hooked. Oddbins brought me back to Nottingham and a couple of years later the girlfriend was dragged off to yet another winery, this time in Italy, to get married – the best man even made it, with the timely acquisition of a new passport.
I started running wine classes for a local college, along with blogging, mainly about beer. While I was doing that I was studying for the WSET diploma, a two year couirse that follows on from the WSET qualifications I started in my time with Oddbins. This lead on to getting a job with the Whisky Shop and, surprise surprise, more blogging, this time about whisky. I completed the diploma in early 2013, and I am now an Associate of the Institute of Wines and Spirits.
Why Drinks Advice? Well, my first job title in Oddbins was Wine Adviser, and it really involved chatting and creating conversations about wine - something I'd like to think that, in blogging about all sorts of drinks, I still do.
I started running wine classes for a local college, along with blogging, mainly about beer. While I was doing that I was studying for the WSET diploma, a two year couirse that follows on from the WSET qualifications I started in my time with Oddbins. This lead on to getting a job with the Whisky Shop and, surprise surprise, more blogging, this time about whisky. I completed the diploma in early 2013, and I am now an Associate of the Institute of Wines and Spirits.Why Drinks Advice? Well, my first job title in Oddbins was Wine Adviser, and it really involved chatting and creating conversations about wine - something I'd like to think that, in blogging about all sorts of drinks, I still do.
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