River Pig Saloon Bloody Mary - Portland. A Black Pepper Disappointment.

Sometimes, it's a warm, freshly baked cinnamon roll on a beautiful spring day. Sometimes, it's a life choice reaffirmed after year's of head-spinning doubt. Sometimes, you're sitting on the bumper of a parked bus repeating a history that never should have been. And sometimes, there's an aching pit in your stomach where an ice cold, life-nourishing bloody mary should be. Easy come, easy go. Or sometimes, the exact opposite.

River Pig Saloon was an utter disappointment. Aside from the nice glass, I have little that is positive to say, and considering my current mood, I should probably just say nothing. If I could boil it all down to one flavor (and I don't know if you could even justifiably call this a "flavor"), I'd tell you first, to order something else, but second, that it tastes like one thing: stale black pepper. Yes, the kind of stale black pepper that you find in the back of your parents' decade old spice cabinet, the kind of stale black pepper that's been aging in your old camping gear, and, of course, the kind of stale black pepper that's been sitting in those little white packets that you stole from McDonald's five years ago. I mean... hmm... it had a cool glass? Yeah... but it wasn't that cool.