"How do you know what mugwort tastes like?"
"I use it in a smoked mushroom broth. The bitterness complements umami the way acid complements fat." I move the second mug closer. Take another sip. "This is good, Cleaver."
The words cost me something. A toll extracted at the back of my throat.
"It's not refined. The chestnut integration is uneven. You're getting hot spots in the secondary ferment, probably because your temperature control is a damp towel over the barrel."
"Itisa damp towel over the barrel."
"But the base culture is extraordinary. Six generations of wild yeast adapted to cold ferment. You could build an entire beverage program around this."
Boris leans both hands at the bar. The wood creaks. His face is close enough that I can see the grain of his skin, the texture like fine sandstone, the way the candlelight catches in the amber of his eyes.
"You just complimented me."
"I critiqued you. There was a compliment embedded in the critique. They're different."
"You said 'extraordinary.'"
"I said theyeastwas extraordinary. The yeast is not you."
He laughs. Deep, seismic, starting somewhere below the floorboards and rolling upward through him and out into the empty tavern where it moves off the stone walls and comes back softer. My sternum vibrates.
He pulls a third keg from the back. This one is smaller, painted with crude symbols in red ochre. He cradles it like a child, moves it to the bar with both hands.
"This is the one I don't serve."
"Why?"
"Because it's not ready. Because I've been working on it for two years and it's never right." He pulls the bung gently, reverently. Pours into a clean mug. The liquid is nearly black, with a violet sheen at the edges. "My grandmother's funeral ale. Every Orc brewer makes one. You spend your life perfecting it. When you die, they serve it at your wake."
The tavern goes quiet. Even the embers stop crackling.
I wrap both hands around the mug. The warmth seeps into my split knuckle, into the thin pink line that his spice healed. I drink.
Smoke. Dark fruit. A tannin structure so complex it reads like architecture, vaulted ceilings and stone arches and rooms I've never entered. Underneath, something bitter and green. Grief, maybe. Or just mugwort.
"It's unfinished," I say.
"I know."
"The mid-palate drops out. You lose the fruit and the smoke doesn't carry it. There's a gap."
He nods. Slow.
"Have you considered a fruit addition at the tertiary stage? Something with enough acid to bridge the tannins. Sour cherry. Or blackcurrant."
Boris pulls a stool around to his side of the bar and sits. The stool groans. His knees press against the bar's lower panel. He is, even seated, enormous, a mountain range arranged on furniture.
"Blackcurrant," he repeats.
"Fermented. Not fresh. You'd need to lacto-ferment them first to develop the acid without adding sugar. I have a culture."
"You have a blackcurrant culture."
"I have thirty-seven active fermentation cultures in my walk-in. I'm a vegan chef, Cleaver. Fermentation is half my toolkit."
He rubs his jaw. His thumb drags across the scar tissue, tracing a line from his ear to his chin.