Kombucha
It’s no secret that I like to get drunk. I once read that a glass of red wine each night reduces the risk of heart disease, so I’ve always assumed that larger doses and greater alcohol content could cure all kinds of ailments, including conversational awkwardness, an inability to tell interesting stories, and a general unflattering physical appearance. There is an important social aspect to drinking, as well. There are people out there who drink for negative and unhealthy reasons, but I drink to black out and wake up renewed by false, hazy memories of how fun I was, and how much everyone enjoyed my company. The problem is that none of these drinking qualities work among friends. Because friends will always be there the next day to remind you that, while drunk, you were still unattractive and boring. And this is why I drink at Vendetta.
4306 N Williams Ave
Portland, OR 97217
(503) 288-1085
Vendetta has ample bike parking and a ton of space both inside and out, so if you find yourself acting like an ass in one region of the bar, you can always move to another area and start anew. They have shuffleboard, so that when you’ve exhausted a bar full of people to embarrass yourself around, you can play shuffleboard and wait for a new crop of young, hip drinkers.
My sandwich was delicious, and the beer didn’t have any of the rusted-pipe flavor I get from the dives near my house. The patio is beautiful, and provides plenty of shrubbery’d corners to puke in private, returning to your drinking with your head held high.
I’m not that surprised that you don’t make your own Kombucha, but I AM surprised that you’re not farming the starter babies out to Sweden. Anyone who needs organic pancake batter to come pre-mixed in a compressed spray canister is obviously not gonna bother with raising their own rotten beverages. I say that with all due respect to the Gingerade flavor, of course.
My parents met on a commune they both lived on in the santa cruz mountains. My mom was telling me about some of the “crazy stuff they got into” while living there. Taking acid on sugar cubes, fasting, lots of meditation, and making a “distgusting drink called Kombucha” that was “supposed to be good for you”. She found it hilarious that 30 years later said beverage was sweeping the nation (or at least the coastal parts).
Growing up in a really small, rural mill town meant that I was the child freak of adult hippies, so I remember well when my mom gestated her own little early 1990s slime baby in an inordinately large mason jar on the counter. To me, this was yet another horribly embarrassing pit stop along the road of Gross Hippie Things my mom did, like not shaving her arm pits, picking me up from grade school bra-less and tie-dyed, and refusing to make salads with iceberg lettuce and ranch dressing. Oh mom, look at me now: eating tofu like it was iceberg lettuce w/ranch and spending at least 6 bones a week on Booch. Not to mention my armpits. Kombucha’s prominence may ebb and flow like a frothy tide of squishy vinegar, but it shall never fade to nothing!