Victorino Matus is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard. After he graduated from Georgetown University, Vic landed his first and only fulltime job at the magazine. In addition to The Weekly Standard, he has written pieces for the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. His book “Vodka: How a Colorless, Odorless, Flavorless Spirit Conquered America” will hit bookstores this summer.
Where did you grow up?
I was born in New York City. When I was 2, we moved to Tom’s River, N.J. My parents have been in the same house since 1975. So when we go to visit, my son stays in my room where I grew up. Tom’s River is on the Jersey Shore, and it is just on the other side of the bridge over by Seaside Heights of Jersey Shore fame from MTV. So I grew up with that. I like to point out that the cast from Jersey Shore is from New York. They’re not from New Jersey.
Why did you go to Georgetown?
When I realized I couldn’t go into aerospace engineering because I’m not good at math, I went into the foreign service program. There was no math or science requirement. I loved politics, international relations, history and all that. Since I was a sophomore in high school, I had always wanted to go to the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. I wanted to work in an embassy. I studied for a year in Vienna, so I aced the language proficiency test. But only two people from Georgetown were accepted into the foreign service.
Do you think you dodged a bullet by avoiding working in the foreign service?
I was told that I dodged a bullet. It’s a hard life. You’re moving every two to three years. It’s hard to build relationships. Some joke around that the only relationship you develop is with a bottle. Either way, maybe I would have ended up writing about vodka. But I wouldn’t have ended up doing journalism. As it turned out, that’s what I could do. As my friend reminds me, I fell assbackwards into The Weekly Standard.
What were you doing before The Weekly Standard?
I was working a parttime job in Rosslyn, Va. I lied about it. I told people it was fulltime because I was so embarrassed that it was all I could do. And it was for a German defense consulting firm. It was depressing. My boss was terrible. He made me copy his son’s sixthgrade science homework once. But I did it, because there wasn’t anything else. He ended up going to jail because he was in trouble with the IRS.
What inspired your book?
It just happened that I started knowing more people getting involved in the industry, sort of randomly. And I thought that was weird. I knew a guy that worked for Diageo. His stories were interesting about that world — the vodka industry. One of my friends from home told me he plunked down something like $25,000 for a vodka start up that his buddy was doing in New Jersey. It was pretty bold. I started looking into the numbers to see exactly how much we drink, how little time it took vodka to be the most dominant spirit in America, and how much we spend on something that is flavorless, odorless, and colorless. And yet we have over 1,000 brands.
Anything interesting you have learned in your research?
Vodka is, by and large, the most mixable of all spirits. I’d say half of the drinking population doesn’t like the taste of booze, so that’s why they like vodka. Vodka, you can make it overnight. Everyone would like to make a fine whisky or scotch, but you need to wait two or three years. Some take more like 16 years. The vast majority of vodkas are made at ethanol plants in the Midwest. An ethanol plant will be able to get your spirit and vodka level and then they can ship it to your little distillery where you can run it through once — that’s all you need. And then you can say “distilled at” your place.
Have your thoughts about vodka changed since you started this book?
I drink less of it.