▷S3E8 “You Have to Like Yourself,” says Abe Zarate, Sober Sommelier

But ultimately what I always wanted which I can speak for the entire human race is connection we all just want connection and I just had equated drinking to getting a little bit of what I thought was genuine connection because in my mind I thought well when people drink they're uh uninhibited and they let go more and they're more open so whatever you're showing me as your true self and whatever I'm showing you as my true self and this is there is a certain that occurs if you remember [Music] it welcome to moto ber the podcast about local drinks and local sayings I'm your host Rose Thomas banister [Music]

I'm so happy to introduce today's guest Abe zerat known on the internet as the sober s Abe has worked as a s with top wine programs in New York City at the Modern and contentto he was recognized as one of 40 Top Taste makers in 2024 by Wine Enthusiast magazine a promotes inclusivity and Hospitality by working with the nonprofit wine on Wheels by co-leading in English as a second language program for restaurant workers and by speaking openly about his experiences as a beverage professional who does not consume alcohol AB welcome hi Rose before we start the interview I want to remind you that Moto dber is a listener supported program please take a moment to visit patreon.com o o di V to learn more about the exclusive educational content that you'll unlock when you become a paid supporter of the show a and I will be here when you get

back the last time we were together we were at Sam Bale's sober Supper Club and we both got interviewed for CBS News yes yeah yeah yeah big thanks to Sam Bale your fellow podcast guest from season 2 episode 11 Sam puts on non-alcoholic events around New York City through Third Place bar Sam really puts the celebration into sobriety so that new segment is airing on CBS on January 11th from 7: to 9:00 a.m. eastern standard time and pretty recently decided not to drink alcohol felt like a life sentence of getting offered coffee Coca-Cola or orange juice AB you said something on CBS news about you said something to CBS news about making everyone feel included when they're raising a glass in a toast can you tell me more about that yeah I think um it's a it's a very personal choice and I probably said that uh this country and World in general has such a problem with choice this is such a microcosm of it all but just as important because it's a reflection of how we all operate you know I have very specific uh faces and reactions whenever I've brought over over a non-alcoholic option whenever I know someone's celebrating or you know I'm splashing with bubbles which I love to do you know always bleed with generosity and they just turned to me and it's so so easy really to make someone feel not just special but just included in an experience that at that point it's kind of like why not why wouldn't you have something you know mhh how does it work for you being a sober som the logistics of it is it's the exact same as when I did ingest alcohol which is you taste sometimes you taste at 8: a.m. so you can imagine even if you do consume alcohol you're not swallowing every sip so I would spit in those occasion but the only difference is now I spit every time you know I make sure that I have my own before even taking a sip to taste that there's either a sink or I have a little cup of recip um I was going to say recipient cuz that's how you said it in Spanish recept recepticle or if you're visiting a Vineyard just you know the world is your the land is your your spit cup everything else has been a process of reframing and rewiring kind of pointed towards this concept of neuroplasticity and not to get too scientific because I don't even you know I wouldn't even know how to really relay that information it's a a process in which you are able to rewire your brain to change your behaviors and habits and just think about things differently you only know what you know so it's kind of re positioning your lenses so you create a new reality and in this new reality I no longer have a an alcohol disorder mhm mhm but you still got to keep your job yes yeah yeah yeah yeah so you didn't have to change that you you have discovered did you think you were going to have to quit in the wine business when you wanted to quit drinking I was ready for it it sounds silly but I was watching an Ellen Pompeo interview at some point where she talked about uh asking for 20 million a season or something like that Grace's Anatomy I don't know if you know the actress but she said that when she went into the meeting she was ready to walk away and I made sure that I was ready to walk away from an industry that has given me continues to give me so much not least of which is a community and so alcohol was just such a tiny part of it really that I didn't want to leave it but again I was very much ready to walk away and I think that's why not the only reason but that's a large part of why it's um become sustainable you know want to tell you something which is I was about to walk away too in uh late 2023 I was feeling a lot of General burnout and before pivoting to writing and education from hospitality and sales which is really I think a better fit for me all along not that I didn't have a great time you know doing those other jobs that I did for a long time but you know part of it was just the the taxing nature of this culture of where there was just a lot of drinking and it was just kind of wearing me down you know one of the first things I did during the lockdown was I just stopped drinking completely because I didn't have to for work and it's so weird because you know when you're in these kind of sexy food jobs food and wine jobs it's like oh poor you you get to drink free alcohol all day and I'm like yes know it's it's I get I'm expected to drink alcohol all day I don't know it took me a long time to get to a point where you know I'm not drinking every day and like moderating isn't that hard I'd always found actually that um not drinking at all was a lot easier than mod in which I think a lot of people have had that experience it's weird for some of this for me it kind of is especially now it's been almost 4 and a half years but I also live with my sister who has no issue moderating I have a ton of friends who have no issue moderating so I see it everywhere and that's why I think of the and I'm not the first one to bring up this analogy but as an allergy it's just you take a gluten allergy there's an intolerance and then there's celc disease so yeah I'm somewhere in the middle closer to celc where I just said it would be a slow not that slow but a slow burn into something that's not beneficial to my wellbe yeah you just have to make those decisions it's uh if you have an allergy to shellfish you're not going to expose yourself at the time I'm describing I was also having some digestive issues and I was wondering if it was gluten I think I might have been alcohol actually yeah both at the same time so it was kind of hard to tell although I don't drink that much anymore or I don't drink every day what is your Instagram handle it's it's sober unor Su okay sober Su because sober Somali was taken I was you know what I think it was taken by me really yeah and depending on the time frame because I actually made a second account really and I thought about doing what something like what you're doing at least publicly I it's like could I pivot and that was the thing that I did I didn't put anything on it oh wow I knew that I wasn't sure about I I was going to take an extended time off I was thinking a year this was in 2024 so I had I had been drinking for about three months and then I got invited to judge one competition in Italy I was also thinking about just changing careers completely but I wasn't happy about that I had asked myself well why don't you just get a different job like the ones you've had and I had to admit that I didn't want to that I was like well what would you have done with your somier certification all along if there were no limits and I was like I would be a writer and I was like oh that sounds too hard we tried that that's why you went and got a jayob in restaurants in the first place blah blah blah was feeling very close-minded and also not drinking and not eating gluten so then I get invited to Italy but I was just like this is me right now and I'm going to go to Italy judge the wine competition and eat without drinking or eating wheat and I did it and you know what it was not a big deal really I'm more impressed by no no gluten in Italy I mean this is a whole other story but it's actually really easy to be gluten-free in Italy they want to make sure everybody can eat they have a lot of celiacs there but also Italian cuisine is so much more than pasta and the cuisine is such simple straightforward ingredients that there's not a lot there aren't hidden ingredients so there's always something for you to eat and and actually people are amazing and that's what I learned so I guess what I want to talk to you is you know kind of your transitionary process with openly communicating it this people's reactions what I discovered is a it was fine B when I finally spoke up about my needs I discovered things like the chef at my favorite pizza restaurant in Brooklyn which I guess is my yeah barano they have great pizza um it's in Williamsburg the chef is has analogy and he had a secret glutenfree menu that is awesome now it's public but it had been he just had it and he could have been making me food that didn't make me feel bloated or whatever for years if I had just said something and when you bring up these things then people the the positive side is that people are like oh yeah me too or I have this or I'm allergic to green bell peppers it kind of opens up the door and his job is not disimilar to what I just said earlier it's it's the exact same thing if anything I I mean I don't know his health or what actual issues he would develop but it's the same thing that doesn't mean he's not able to cook those pizzas or able to provide the actual more than the than the meal which is Hospitality that's where what we're in the business of and I've said it a lot before Hospitality doesn't just belong in restaurants I some of the best places outside of restaurants that I've loved working at are the places where I clock Hospitality right away and that's such an important thing to kind of shift the focus too as well it's just that shifting your focus to what matters what you want to stay in this case in the industry for yeah I mean so just to like wrap that up and we've talked about the story of how I came up with an idea for this project before but I was around a bunch of people who were also wine judges who had some kind of entrepreneurial or creative project I opened my mind a little bit more but I also showed myself that I could taste 80 wines a day without taking a single Sip and it was fine it wasn't just fine it was great I had more stamina I was more present I was a better taster I've been a big advocating for spitting all along like it's just kind of a rookie move to not spit it's like oh you've been here for 20 minutes and now you have to go home you know I'm going to stay here and continue to learn I I didn't end up staying in wine I didn't continue to drink but it's was more like I drink for work one of the ways that I'm able to do that is because of all these wonderful non-alcoholic products that do exist now I do a lot of swapping out whereas before it was like okay there would be this epivo hour and this Amaro and all this wine in between I'm going to have a non-alcoholic beer and you know swap out some other things I'm going to save myself save what drinking I do want to do for this wine that I really want to try but I'm not just going to be like oh you know Dive Bar Savion blunk okay so I think it's actually really improved the quality of my drinking exp exctly it's drinking better whatever that means to any person it's not doesn't mean more expensive doesn't mean less expensive doesn't mean consuming more or less it's just whatever better means to you whatever will enhance it experience that's that's it and then you keep saying um words that I I go back to a lot like swap like habit swap habits don't die understanding that understanding that you need to swap it out if I like to have a drink in my hand then okay well when I'm travel I'm commuting I'm holding a coffee when I'm uh getting home after a busy service I like to sink into my couch with another drink in my hand so even tonic water bitters the simplest of things something a fancy wine glass just something that kind of makes it feel like an experience versus what I'm actually ingesting that's more impactful than any liquid in the receptacle what is your shift drink these days sh shift drink being your after work couch drink at home yeah cuz I I rarely spend extra time at work now tonic water honestly cuz it's the simplest and I still consume Bitters and non-alcoholic BS all the bids are great products that I really really love and they have you know a similarish uh background being Somalia as well which company is that all the bitter all the bitter all the bitter so on the flip side I talked about having positive experiences talking about changing my what I was ingesting at different times I mean then when you start drinking again you worry about disappointing people you know for me right and so it's was like oh sorry I'm just want to say thank you to for just talking about this because you could have easily become the sober song without Bec becoming the sober s before I made those changes that I just described I found it personally to be a bit lonely as a beverage professional who decided at a certain point that I wanted to drink less you would think the industry people would talk all the time about how to find balance when we're dealing with the substance in our work but in my experience nobody talks about it and I I experienced in the past drinking in the beverage industry as a sort of machismo where you silently try to keep up with everybody's else's drinking and if it gets too much for you you just kind of disappear and then there must have been something wrong with you yes yeah you couldn't hang in Breaking that silence I find that like for you to have to explain that you're a somia who doesn't drink do you find that people can react really emotionally or become defensive or apologetic or what range of emotional reactions do you get from explaining who you are and how have you responded to that over time it's the entire range of of responses anywhere from from let's say a job interview where I don't really know the person very well and I bring it up in my own way they for some reason feel for the most part the need to tell me about their drinking habits kind of saying well I don't drink that much either way and I'm like that's cool that's great I I'm just saying this is you know how I work it out and the line that I like to toe maybe sprinkle in for for me explaining sobriety does not equal abstinence always sobriety doesn't have to be dry etc etc kind of going more into those things I mean that's kind of new information to me what do you mean by that yeah let's let's let's stop there so sobriety has less to do with the avoidance of alcohol than it does actually looking into the wise and what you're actually trying to get from being in a different state of mind in this case or in my case I should say a numbing State of Mind and that was either to I I found out I was doing to tolerate people more it wasn't necessarily to make myself more fun or more of a life of a party is because I didn't want to be around certain people and I was kind of forcing myself to or environments to that's one but ultimately what I always wanted which I can speak for the entire human race is connection we all just one connection and I just had equated drinking to getting a little bit of what I thought was genuine connection because in my mind I thought well when people drink they're uh uninhibited and they let go more and they're more open so whatever you're showing me is your true self and whatever I'm showing you is my true self and this is there is a that URS yeah if you remember it and I I just wasn't it just wasn't leading to any deeper connection that's what I I realize and and now I just really focus on connecting in different ways with people like like like this I like to listen to other people's ways of of life it has little to do with how much anyone might drink or not or what they do I just want to know what they're about and I'm genuinely interested in in humans and human behavior because I'd argue you are able to find something in common and a connection with any human out there if you just listen to a little bit of what they have to say that's wonderful yeah it's true it's

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moto.com Abe do you have a local saying to share with us well local could um be New York or where I up I grew up between Laro Texas and guara Mexico I was uh thinking about something maybe drinking or alcohol related there's this word be which on its own means fart but I love the Spanish language just because depending on inflection alone let alone context you can change the meaning of a word and and honestly I think about it as like taking a grape and growing it everywhere or anywhere in the world and you know it retains its identity but it captures different characteristics of the place Etc so in any case this is uh you know depending on on the you're bringing my two ideas together that's so beautifully the the terar of language all you could say Capo which is what's up you can say Neo which is uh you know too bad um uh ped to be to be drunk you it's something you are there's so many so many estas estas yeah or or you're saying you're stting it estas you need to go home how would you even Translate yeah exactly and I love doing that there's so many phrases like that in Spanish that make no sense if you translate them literally but yeah that's just uh buedo like it it it can be good or bad depending on the context and that's not unlike alcohol and wine in the industry depending on the context and the lens that you have in front of it is uh what it is to you that really is why it's such a personal choice and it's not about telling anyone how to do anything it's just presenting what you're doing because I know that when I was uh entertaining the idea of staying in the industry while becoming sober I was frantically looking for at sober Somalia # uh sober in Hospitality # silver bartender just anyone in the industry that might have been doing it already I found a few but not too many understandably so because not everyone wants to be public about it I found this uh I'm Tim hany uh I think he's a master of why I'm not sure Master somal yeah something like that but I read um an article where he had quit after achieving that certification so it was really tough for me to find someone who was actively you know pursuing something at certification whatever the case may be so I wasn't crazy nobody was no no no just because someone is not outwardly visible does not mean they don't exist and that goes for anything you know and it's true I know that because for I open that account like on my H 100th day so like four years ago over those four years I've had so many people DM me wine makers Somalia I I would have never even thought to think oh I wonder what their habits are you know it's just it's almost surprising how many people are actively pursuing or choosing sobriety while working with it it's it's uh kind of U validating in a way so if I was able to present anything to them hopefully without account which is the whole purpose of it then I'm getting benefit from that feedback loop thank you for changing their conversation well you know one person out of that there's so many people doing it yeah somebody has to break the ice it would have been a lot simpler to just Market mod Barry as a wine account because that's like the biggest area of my expertise but I just I wanted I knew I wanted to cover cocktails also but I wanted to cover Global cultures a lot in Italy a lot of New York but not just there there's whole places in the world where alcohol isn't that big a part of the culture or just people where alcohol is a huge part of the culture but not a part of their life and I just I wanted everybody to feel included so I said drinks yeah it's I I was very much welcomed in that you call it transition which it was from not drinking back into the job market I started uh back uh cuz it was in the middle of Co so I started back as a service manager so I didn't really touch alcohol or wine or anything and then slowly I started tasting again but I was immersed in it you know I didn't want to be scared of a substance forever so I was like bring it on it's not even about testing myself if this is triggering me okay what is it it's not the drink it's not the drink itself what is it that's triggering me and a lot of the times it was uncomfortability not just in a space but with myself that's really where everything just started to make sense you just have to like yourself there's no other option you have to like yourself [Music] then thinking about dry January a lot of times when when I worked as a bartender so you're really a therapist whatever angst people would have I would suggest go on vacation by yourself the other aspect of that kind of life-changing trip was I was doing a fun trip by myself but we all have a rut that sometimes a little solo travel can really help you hear your own voice and that's how I feel about dry January and that's what dry January was for me for me was a chance to be like am I happy with the way that I'm doing things what are your feelings about dry January there's a lot of marketing around it a lot of opinions talk to me about dry January what's on your mind about that we live in a capitalist Society so everything is going to turn into consumerism everything's going to get marketed eventually but if you look at the root of it and dig in a little bit people have asked me this before and I I I think there's huge value on something like dry January especially the way it's perceived now as a more communal thing people and the wine business might be scared at how much they're seeing it I don't know call it movement whatever it is the movement grow but it's not even a movement it's just people feel are feeling I think more comfortable and an otherwise isolating thing like you said it can be really lonely then shame might might dig through I think it was brne brown in a tech talk or something shame only works when you're alone something along those lines that's why it's gained such a prominence I think and for that reason for the community which is what the you know wine business is supposed to be all about and supporting each other it has to be holistic you have to support each other in whatever thing you're doing in the moment it's only a moment a pause a trip if you will to rethink and just kind of check in how can you check in if you're not clear-minded and present to make those decisions and if you take that pause and you think oh I actually have no issue at all great if you do then you but not to a certain degree where you have to quit altogether then you're becoming a sustainable part of the wine economy because then you will hopefully be able to drink moderately for life even myself I don't ingest alcohol but I'm actively purchasing wine and not actively purchasing whether it's for blind tasting or parties or whatever it is so it's not about shunning people I think a personally feel that dry January is a lot smaller threat to the world of wine than snobbery outdated marketing exclusivity elitism I mean like I think there's a lot of things we can work on I feel like there were a lot of op-eds around January last year where people were like oh it's the end of civilization mostly I was worried because I felt that there was this thing it's kind of like when someone becomes a vegetarian or something I was listening to an old interview with Anthony Bain talking about vegetarians and he was famously like you know like did not like that I think we've realized now that vegetarians existing are not going to like put an end to demolish the into the beautiful traditional sausages of Italy or something like having this reaction to people who aren't drinking even for a month as like being censorious or raining on everybody's parade or something like that self-righteous is a and I was just like to me it it came off as like I don't know who's doing the hectoring here but if people have dropped out of being an alcohol consumer I don't think you're going to get them back I saw a panel at vitle was like Neo prohibitionism a threat to the industry and like okay outrage it gets a lot of clicks and then more of those articles get written there was one in the New York Times that was really weird I my eyes at all of those Wars and fre but then you did you did a talk with Karen yeah I want to hear your thoughts about doing that interview together and your thoughts on Neo prohibitionism the threat to the civilization of wine I wanted to do it because it was POS to me as a um the come over October is a campaign bringing people together in whatever way kind response to socialization and that part of it which is Karen mcneils and Gino Colangelo I was working at Colangelo at that time oh interesting so Karen mcneel by the way is the author of The Wine Bible one possibly my favorite wine textbook and coangelo is a marketing a PR agenc for food and beverage it was presented to me and I thought it was a great idea to things are are already coexisting so it's just presenting it as such which things are coexisting well everything but in this case sobriety and alcohol consumers it's just we're all whether they're they're vocal about it or not everyone is coexisting yeah I'll still celebrate come over October I'll because I'll be hanging out with friends and as long as the wine is in the main focus it's just being around your people yeah there will be whne around and you'll be together you'll be you going to me that was it that was it right and they kind of changed the tune to more moderation so I was like great I felt like it went through different transitions of uh the neoo anti- Neo prohibitionist uh to more okay come over October drink in moderation sort of thing because you're not going to win with the health take on either side mhm MH there's no winning there right and there are too many variables anyway I saw that coming to the conversation and I think people know what they're in for and they don't need to be preached about the health benefits or lack thereof people know people are smarter than the one industry thinks and I'm not saying that being puritanical does not exist it's really weird to I'm not sure who's doing this exactly but to give like somebody like Sam Ba yeah who's kind of like a yay not let's have more delicious non-alcoholic beverages wouldn't want to give like an influencer in that space flak for threatening the wine industry or something in fact I view having fun with dry January having more high quality non-alcoholic beverages available a wider range of conversations around sabrier whatever that means as a really nice corrective to the way that I mean I'm talking about American culture but I feel like the way that we've dealt with anyone who has any issue with substances whether you want to call it an addiction or not has just been tremendous amounts of Shame yeah just kind of the emot mechanics of degrading people where the scapegoat becomes the addict I think it's really good if if people can have open conversations about yeah and you should that's another perspective that I believe we benefit hugely from changing because you don't have to hit rock bottom either to make a a change if you're talking about sober people especially in dry jary putting at risk any sales or Revenue I have friends who will invite me and they will pick a restaurant or bar based on their non-alcoholic options I don't care I'm fine with Seltzer because I'm there to hang out with my friends and good music the atmosphere if they don't see enough offering for me they would pick a different place and now the restaurant is losing on two three four people that would have potentially brought in however much money of Revenue that night and not just that one time we won't go back there because we already know that there's no non-alcoholic offerings does that make sense where I'm trying to get coming back to vegetarianism and of obiously aun preachy self-righteous vegetarian but at the same time did the conversation let's all eat more vegetables really hurt anything I mean did it hurt an industry I mean now you're seeing entire highlevel tasting menus the whole restaurant's vegetarian and that used to be so weird Indian Chicago was just there Michelin star tasting menu they have separate menus vegetarian piscatarian and I forget what they call the meat option and for their pairing menu they had a a non non-alcoholic pairing menu so they're really thinking of it all in advance making it feel like you're expected yeah they expect to accommodate it doesn't take too much that's a thing I think people see it as this whole like oh well now I have to create this whole thing no also most people and not just sober people just vegetarian people I have friends that I go out with that don't eat seafood they don't make it my problem if they share they're like oh I'll share this and this and then order whatever you want and I'll order whatever I want they're not making it your problem because they know it's a personal choice I just want to say to the industry people chill out on S sober influencers really all that person wants is like when I go out to a bar could there be a non-alcoholic cocktail for me that's not a glass of apple juice like an 8-year-old and they're really asking for something so small and on the health news we kind of talked about it but other people may not be following this as close as as we were I do just want to say with the World Health Organization I think that the alcohol industry has done a really bad job in how we've reacted to that and how we've positioned ourselves and so I just want to say that the way that I interpret that study in a nutshell is there was something called The j-shaped Curve I mean you can look it all up but that thing where it was good for your heart to drink red wine or people said there was a certain you know one to two drinks for men or one drink for women someone did a retrospective study and they realized that in the past past when they had compared people who don't drink at all to people who drink a little bit that was not a good comparison and they found that the light drinkers were healthier it was because the people who didn't drink at all a lot of them already had stopped drinking because they had a health issue so that was it in light of that study the World Health Organization the spin was no amount of alcohol is safe and the reaction was one drop will kill you and people were like oh it's so overblown but what really happened the way that I saw it was this Health Organization no longer felt comfortable choosing an amount to recommend that people drink we've known that drinking too much alcohol can cause cancer since the 80s that is not news and people who are marketing alcohol it's not Health Food you know we know this right and I don't want to gloss over the health problems that you know drinking too much can cause but that was it just the who was like we no longer feel comfortable recommending that people have one to two drinks a day we're getting rid of that wisdom and sorry that antioxidant thing you don't get that anymore you don't get red wine lost its Health Halo I just I feel like there was this kind of straw man overreaction yeah that I think but if you're sitting there and you're worried because there are threats to the wine industry in terms of economics and all kinds of other things worry more about climate change than the j-shaped curb and just chill out about it I that's my advice you're going to be fine yeah everyone knows exactly what they need and what's messing them up in their daily life and if that happens to be again with a chips or wine or or gluten or something you modify it and that's it focus on being the best person you can be so that you can be physically mentally and emotionally available as a resource to help the the bigger [Music] causes speaking of community I'm so happy to hear about your work making English as a second language classes available for Hospitality workers with the Group corporate per Latinos tell us more about your work with them so that saying nonprofit that started uh we just turned three and my sister started it before I was even a nonprofit she worked at KPMG one of the big four and she as you can imagine she was always one of the only Brown women in any environment and and in that company so she just posted a Tik Tok asking if there were any other girlies out there looking to just hang out and socialize and just share experiences and you can imagine how that devolved into something not devolved evolved into into something uh bigger and and she had always had this want to pay it forward especially coming from our dad is very much of the mentality of if it was hard for me it has to be harder for everyone behind me because they have to pay their dues and we're of the opposite like everything we do is to prove that wrong cuz if you make it easier one it's it's impossible to make it fully easy so that's not even something we can achieve but make it just a little easier then you start elevating more and more as you elevate yourself it's really an an an uplifting of a community not just a person tell me about these classes I find that that I I want to teach wine in Spanish and I want to do all those things but the very first barrier to entry to even opening up someone's mind to other possibilities or choice is the English language a lot of these people and we focus again uh on Hospitality workers come here not knowing a lick of English and they think well with the the language barrier this is the only job that I'm suited for that I can do so by eliminating that you already open up five other ladders that they can climb if they want to choice choice choice and that's what we do not not a single one of us as volunteers are certified teachers professors Etc but I find it really curious that uh you know I'll I'll listen in on on someone teaching and we use a lot of the same examples or we follow similar paths and I think it's because of that shared experience honestly my favorite way to learn language is to sit with somebody in a cafe with a notebook yeah and you just you just Converse it's incredible because yeah we have a syllabus and we've gotten to the point where we're a lot more structured but a lot of the times I just show up and and and once you build that consistency I think what makes makes us really special it's that one-on-one interaction and consistent personto person so you build that trust and openness I've been teaching for two and a half years and and there's this one specific student I've had that it took over a year for him to even be a little comfortable saying anything in English and once it started it was just so it's the most gratifying thing so if someone wants to take one of these classes how do they find out about it we found too that it in keeping it more focused in this case uh geared towards hospit IT workers it started garnering more attention and especially because I'm part of the hospitality industry Etc but it really is open to anyone who wants to take them so we can be found on our website corpor latino. org you can DM me on my so account at Corp Latinos on Instagram anyone who's looking to join us or know someone that wants to either volunteer or learn English please yeah so speaking of looking ahead to creating the world that we envision what if there were more wine education in Spanish how might that have changed your wine vocabulary cuz you had to learn English in order to take those tests yeah I worked at cork buus Chelsea Market for a while and very tourist heavy so a lot of Spanish there and I found that I was I was having trouble you know finding words for nutty tennin uh body I know how to say body but I didn't know if it was a different word or medium full Etc and so I had to go back and Rel learn all of these things in English I'm sorry in Spanish yeah I saw an opportunity to to at some point lean into it you know I've been speaking of cork buus Amber rail wonderful wonderful human and one of the smartest wine people out there she created this this presentation that um I still need sorry Amber need to look over but uh yeah to start to get that started and just have it available you know it's not looking to make money necessarily it's just like I want to offer people resources and and options for them to take if they want yeah and maybe there could be a moment when you don't have to learn English first before considering a wine career in New York City exactly which is such a diverse place I I look forward to that day I guess this is as good a moment as any to announce that I'm starting a Spanish podcast I've been wanting to for a long time because actually I had someone tell me there should be more wine education in Spanish and I thought I hadn't seen it before and then I couldn't stop seeing it Mot espanol is going to launch in 2025 um and so we're actually going to record an interview in Spanish after this and that will Air once mberry espanol launches the place where we did that news interview was contentto restaurant your most recent s gig I want to talk about how they unfortunately closed and of course ask you about your your next steps because I believe you're on the job market right now but first I just want to talk about how this was such a lovely restaurant that was really committed to inclusivity both for diners and workers with different kinds of dis abilities and I wanted to ask you about how your work as a sober Som generally ties into the work of inclusivity so this place contento was really special Mostly because of the people that are behind it what got the most attention rightfully so is it's welcoming nature towards the disability Community because of the more obvious things like a lowered bar higher tables for wheelchair users to just be able to comfortably enjoy dinner adaptive silverware Braille menu etc etc etc but more than what we had to offer it was about creating a barrier-free space where people could just come in as they are because okay yeah there's a category of wheelchair user but depending on your injury you might have different needs there's a manual wheelchair and there's a power wheelchair different needs for those two things already so it was just like come in tell us tell us how we can accommodate and make this as comfortable as as we can and we'll figure it out in this tiny tiny space and and he's and I think through the very end through closing that was it that was what we what we LED with I like how impactful it's been to me in terms of becoming barrier-free myself hopefully as a person the way I talk to now being in the job market to these other business owners who bring it up you know they they're like yeah I think about this and that and that and that's the impact that I like to see it's yes a spa the space will be gone and you know one of a kind and and a Pioneer in that sense of inclusivity but uh it it the impact has been made and I hope that people take from that to just make things a little a little better more open yeah I mean I guess I would think you're somebody in the wine industry who's looking at people making more non-alcoholic wine or talking about having more non-alcoholic cocktail stuff on restaurant menus maybe instead of thinking oh no how is this going to affect my market share think about how Maybe one day you're going to have surgery or something and you can't drink for a week and won't you be glad that you can have a glass of wine that doesn't taste like crap because you still want to celebrate your daughter's birthday or friend's uh job promotion whatever it is maybe you don't have a problem but maybe there's somebody in your life who needs you know shame free evidence-based addiction if that's out there and like things are evidence-based is that really going to hurt yeah it's exactly it doesn't it doesn't take away from anything if anything it adds cuz again it it's welcoming that yes catering to that one specific person but think of everyone else who's joining or who's around them and their people I was watching you get interviewed and listening to you talk to the news and you said you painted this picture of everyone has this glass and they're doing a toast MH right and you can have a glass that looks like everyone else's glass and what's in your glass looks like whatever is in everybody else's glass instead you're like oh I have my Coke over here and you feel really left out and if you see that person getting treated well even though they need and want something different from the other people at the table doesn't that open the door for you to feel like you might get accepted to yes and also I want my loved ones to be treated well so I'm not going to go somewhere where they get tra like you know right or they're just an afterthought for something that they need it's not necessarily you know it's not always a choice either and I'm very conscious of the fact that I live in New York and it's still very much a bubble so that's not the case everywhere else which is why I try to lean in even more because I also understand that people look to New York as a an aspirational place of sorts so if they look at all these things that are doing well and being lotted in New York then okay they might start making the changes that that need to be made so open the door M chill out about Joy January chill out focus on what you can do to achieve your goals for your life for your work and for making people feel loved and cared for and if you work in the industry your whole job is to be a hospitaliano and welcome people to host I came to your place you offered me water coffee something else that I don't remember and and I said I'll take this thank thank you so much done that's it no conversation and it's just just the way to welcome someone into your space I think and I would do the exact same for you so for people who have someone kind of newly sober in their life or who meet someone who says I don't drink how can they respond in a way that makes you feel like oh this person's going to be

chill you know if someone tells me what do you need or what do you that's it asking the question what would make this better John melany has a really funny skit about Mayo it's like so you don't eat Mayo did you have a problem eating mayo and I was like no one asks those questions about anything else you know I think it was for me I had a house party and someone came to my party and said I don't drink and I didn't know that and I thought oh I don't have anything for them so I I I got this idea of like special drinks for everyone everyone deserves a special drink and like from that moment every time I had a party like I would make a punch that you could Spike on the side or I would always have something that looked great it wasn't like the second tier option my sister and I were hanging out the other day and then she wanted to take a breather so she had a glass of non-alcoholic and then went back to to a cocktail with with alcohol in it it's just different needs different options to make because what did she want she wanted to be around for a longer period of time hanging out had she taken that cocktail right away maybe she would have had to go home or just end it short so that's it again going back to to connection and what can we offer to enhance the possibility of

[Music] connection Abe how can people follow you on the internet can you spell your Instagram handle let us know your websites again I'm on Instagram uh sober s is s o m m you can find out about the nonprofit at corporate par latino. it's like corporate but latino. org wine on Wheels very important yes too uh wine ons.org that's uh that was created by yanic Benjamin part owner of contento a wheelchair user himself so he has a great great story in every way but specifically having a disability as while he was making his way up the the ladder of the hospitality industry lots of stories there if you ever get a chance to to chat with him about that Wi on Wheels we do a grand annual wine tasting where 40 plus tables each one representing a restaurant or bar around New York City uh they bring their own donated beverages to highlight their program they donate their time their resources and they're there to just pay it forward to a bigger cause so any money uh that we fundraise goes towards other people doing the work for the disability Community or marginalized communities out outside of that too go to the website and and they're cool things last question so contentto close last week the time as we're recording this you're looking for a job but I just want to ask you like in a perfect world like what's your dream what's your what do you see happening for you I used to think work in your passion but no I think there should be a separation for instance corpor Latinos if we ever got to a point where you know I could get a salary from it I still wouldn't you know I want to keep it like my time to volunteer and pay forward yeah I mean I say that now I don't know but with wine it's just uh it's more about the the people around it I I I know that line gets thrown out a lot and it sounds corny almost but my perfect job is a job where people inspire me with their purpose even if it's different from mine like I just like to see people pursuing something bigger than themselves that makes me want to work harder and and do more well if you want to hire Abe if he hasn't been snapped up by the time this interview erors I know you're going to get out of here and go to a job interview in a little B you know how to get in touch with him I wish you the best of luck thank you to our listeners thank you so much for being here wherever you go and whatever you like to drink always remember to enjoy your life and to never stop learning support us on patreon grab the newsletter at moto.com And subscribe to the YouTube channel at Moto DeBerry to watch the travel show Moto DeBerry TV music for the show was composed by ailia Prosper for the band o purchase their music at the link in the notes