The Making of a Red Devil

After 8 years at the helm of Everton, David Moyes had accumulated critical acclaim but exactly ZERO silverware of any kind. In his first match as manager of Manchester United Football Club he took home the Community Shield and his very first trophy. This is what it means to be the manager of the world's greatest football club. Its an illustration of what it means to be a Red Devil. Its a club whose very fabric is the resultant legacy of a history drenched in greatness and achievement. A club unhindered by the devastation of the Munich Disaster, which took the lives of half of the team. A club whose grounds were not to be victim of Hitler's bombing runs, instead to be reborn into the Theatre of Dreams. A club whose modern era has been molded by the most decorated manager in the history of the sport over the past 27 years. Its in the personification of the history of greatness that breathes life into each new day for this most glorious of clubs.



You are your path.



I feel that this same truth applies to each and every one of us. We are a product of each and every day that has lead us to here and now. And I don't just mean our lives, but those that came before we ever drew breathe. At least that's my experience in the making of this particular Red Devil.



People often seem quite taken with the oddball road that has lead me to my twisted place in the world of fine wine and spirits. I sprung from the gate as a Public Policy graduate who never quite found his way into relevant fieldwork in the bureaucracies of this great nation. Instead, halfway through my undergrad I turned to the family business and achieved entry into the Canadian Professional Golfers Association. From there, in spite of 15 years in the business, 5 as a professional developing quite a progressive teaching program (if I do say so myself), I 180'd my way into the punk rock concert business. Always a tad restless, I had been moonlighting my years in the golf game in the bar trade since the age of 18. I had been playing disc jockey in a Guelph nightclub whose owners had just opened a dive bar which they wanted to feature live music. They needed a manager and I loved punk rock. Turns out Channel 62 Productions seemed alot more interesting than chasing little white balls and 300 plus concerts and 5 years later, I had arrived as kind of a big deal in the small time game of DIY punk rock. Yet having done everything I was gonna do in that trade, I said goodbye to Guelph in the hope of finally getting to some policy work in Toronto. Turns out though degrees are not much more than $50,000 rolls of toilet paper and I found myself bar backing at Bymark in the financial district. Strangely here, as I was trying to get OUT of the booze game, I discovered the most incredible passion (and justification for my suspiciously rampant thirst for alcohol), fine wine. Over the next few years I dove into wine and spirits, getting my face on a bottle of Maker's Mark in 2010, and gaining certification as a sommelier in 2011.



Pretty cool I guess. It goes a long way as to explaining why I am nowhere near the sommelier you are expecting to greet you in Yorkville.



But to me, my path was cleared through a long time before I was ever walking that shit.



The story gets all sorts of badass back towards the start of the 20th Century. My great grandma Anna Kuzyk was a bit of a warrior. I knew her as a mother of 16 kids who lived well past her 100th birthday (I was the little 9 year old making her sing Ukrainian folk songs whilst I attempted enthusiastic dance moves at her big birthday party). What I came to learn is that she was ahead by a century in my desire to get people shitfaced. Turns out that feeding 16 little Ukranians in the Prairies is no picnic, and while her husband Metro earned his blue collar keep, Anna helped finance their survival by making moonshine out of a hidden still. Alas, the Fork River General Store that retailed her secret homebrew was busted and they didn't blink at ratting her out to the authorities. Problem was property laws being what they were, her husband Metro was hauled off to jail for the illegal moonshine and her still was destroyed. With no husband to bring home a paycheque, and no still to make her contraband, she had ran out of any means to feed 16 hungry kids. Her solution to this problem was a thing of beauty. She marched 11 of the kids (those up for a bit of a hike) to the Dauphin Manitoba jail where her husband was locked up. She arrived explaining that without Metro, she had no way to feed her kids, and that until he was freed, they'd have to take on 12 new mouths to feed. Less than a week of 11 rambunctious Ukie kids crawling around the grounds was all it took for the jail to free Metro in full pardon. Dont play chicken with a Ukranian. Real Talk.

Dad's side of the fam is a bit more traditional in nature, But no less Old World. My grand dad was a bit of a jack of all trades, who had a penchant for mastering all kinds of random hobbies. Naturally winemaking was one of them. I tend to remember his immaculate wood working shop, where he was one of the last living craftsmen who were certified to refinish persimmon golf clubs, But when I look back, I couldn't miss the cold cellar devoted to a giant oak barrel in which he continually made homemade wine for decades. My dad followed suit, dropping the oak barrel for plastic bottles which in which he bottled an admittedly questionably tasting home beer.



It turns out though, that my Michael Corleone like connection to tending bar (I keep trying to get out, but they keep pulling me back in) comes pretty naturally as well. While I long knew my mumsy gave up her nursing career to join my dad in the merchant side of the golf business, I learned only recently that Deb was a barmaid. And not just any barmaid, but in fact, Hamilton Ontario's first ever female bartender. For all my rebellious posturing, my mom is the real deal. A true life renegade who broke a gender barrier in the very field I would one day call home. I think there might have been a time she wanted better for me. I think she has come to see that I was always coming here. And what is better than that?

And I haven't even touched on my Uncle Bud...but that is probably for the best.



You are your path. Your path just starts a little farther back than you think.



My hope for David Moyes, and his new charge at the helm of Manchester United, is he trusts that his path has been long paved. The making of a Red Devil is centuries in the making.