Cold Brewed 001 — Hard Water
The first chapter of Cold Brewed, a graphic novel told in photos about an alternate history where coffee and not alcohol was banned in the prohibition — free with a links to the print version.
As Mark 9 and I thought through the best way to share the tenth(+) anniversary release of Cold Brewed into print, we realized the tiniest fraction of this audience saw it live online when we released it in our early twenties. We decided to re-release it serially online, since it doesn’t format well for e-readers outside of scrolling. There are two ways you can support it as the episodes release here. The first is to order a print copy directly from your preferred bookstore:
If you have another preferred bookstore, let me know in the comments.
The second way is to get a monthly subscription. I’ll send it to the actors and production team:
Cold Brewed is a a graphic novel told in photos about an alternate history where coffee and not alcohol was banned during the prohibition years. It’s an odd duck with a lot of third wave coffee lingo — we never knew, for instance, that Adam’s roasting in his over would turn into an actual coffeeshop and roaster. Video here for the making of Cold Brewed back in 2012, you’ll see our baby faces.
Without further ado, here’s the photonovel I made with Mark in my early twenties:
You get where you wonder how life got so whipless. Been there before, that place between the roast and the drip. Didn’t want to go back.
Did anyways.
It happens. You end up staring at your boots, asking how they got so wet, how the water on them got so hard.
Guess these days there just ain’t enough grinders like me left in the streets.
Everythings darker than it used to be. More burnt, less clean.
Some new Master Roaster comes into town and tampers with the trade and everything ends up in the knock box and the water gets hard again. And runs the drains over.
And when there ain’t enough grinders like me who’re willing to crawl down in there, down into the sewers to filter it all back out, then all that hard water creeps up higher and higher till it spoils us all.
People’ve tried to crawl through that grate, but they fail. Most of these schmucks can’t grind.
Why?
Takes tough teeth to soften the water...
TWO DAYS AGO…
“Dammit,” I whispered into my silent apartment. I’d just poured that cup. Bad enough when you spill your coffee, but it’s worse when a single cup of the black nectar’s pulling thirteen bucks on the street from the blue laws. Wasn’t cheap staying on the drip in those days. Laws made it hard to find a decent brew — one that was all clean, no burnt beans. Couldn’t find a siphon or a pour-over or even a percolator to save my life. We were all scraping the bottom of the burlap.
Spills made it worse.
I left the spill to soak and grabbed another cupful and sipped. Grinds were getting bitter again, but then again, I’d tried to kick the hard stuff after that Emerald City Tamper. Bitter didn’t mean much from where I was standing. Those dosers knew better than some grinder like me who’s on the drip.
Phone rang. I picked up. “Yeah?”
Then line went silent.
“Hi-de-ho?”
No answer. A click sounded. I looked at my ashtray.
Figured it didn’t count if I let ‘em all burn down without my lips touching the ends. Second-hand and all. Not like I had a problem. Even if I did, a man’s vices are his own. I figure a man’s vices come right along with his virtues and there’s only one way to get rid of the vices: smoke ‘em out. Works on the street, works in the heart, works in the lungs.
I got up and paced for a while.
A long while.
Went into the other room and out onto the balcony.
Had to get out for a bit.
The sounds get to you. Especially when the only sounds inside are the persistent plops of drip coffee and the squeaks of neglected floorboards.
The still sounds kept me pacing and I kept right on smoking out the vices.
That went on probably for thirteen minutes.
The drips.
The smokes.
The boards shifting, creaking under my feet, threatening to split apart and let me fall into the abyss that is this city’s black heart. Everything sounded broke. As broke as my savings. As broke as I’d been without her.
Waiting. Searching. Pacing.
Then there’s this other sound.
Knocking...
...at the door, that is.
Whether you loved episode one or hated it, since we’re offering episodes for free, please take two seconds to review COLD BREWED on Goodreads. A star rating takes two clicks, a review only takes ten.
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Did you know Overmorrow is now available for free on Kindle Unlimited? And it’s the final version? If you have kindle, go check it out right now. More to come on this. Or just preorder the paperback on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Overmorrow is #1 in its categories! A sale, PRIZES, Kindle Unlimited, and the Paperback.
Friends! Today is the day to start the OVERMORROW launch. I’m telling you about its success, its sale, its Kindle Unlimited launch (that’s a first for me, an experiment), the paperback preorders, AND SOME FABULOUS PRIZES. Prizes are also for those who purchased early copies