Originally published by Two Thousand in 2014
You ever tear your shirt off, punch the sky and drink a whole two litre thing of cider vinegar? Me either. What about crunching up half a bag of salt n vinegar chips then pouring a red powerade in the bag, shaking it up and guzzling? Such a complicated way to drink vinegar! There’s got to be a better way!
Pok Pok is a cool little Thai restaurant in Portland, Oregon. Or rather it was – now it’s a chain of almost ten restaurants and bars across Portland, New York and LA. Their bars in particular are great for snacking on some of the only decent som tum in the States, while sipping Som – their house made drinking vinegar.
While not as complex as a crushed up chips and powerade combo, the drinking vinegars are sweet and sour, perfect with soda water and even more perfect with liquor. I’m a big fan of the pineapple flavour but I’m excited to try the new weirder flavours like Chinese celery and Thai basil.
Anyone familiar with Asian drinking vinegars will find Som a lot less artificial tasting, and some people might even try and convince you that there’s some old timely health benefits to drinking them. While Som is 100% natural, it is mostly sugars and vinegar. It’s super delicious though, and isn’t happiness the greatest health benefit of all? For real though I just drank three bottles of vinegary sugar syrup please send help.
