Vntrntntglishr Brambscott Scaramouche

Never trust anyone over 30.
The first sip helps you say yes when you want to, helps you dismiss your young and awkward you, shows you that there is another way of being indifferent, of being the same, of being a you you make instead of the you you're made, the one with those stupid braces. These days all the coolest guys have crooked teeth, but all the rich kids have stupid straight teeth. Comes on in phases and never lets go. A kiwi hook to the jaw. An uppercut to the parts you try to keep secret. Shorthand of seeing everything private strewn out on the lawn, the sidewalk, the pavement, and blowing down the street for hours already. A yellow knot in your stomach gathering thick acid around it into a ball of snakes bobbing along the dirty flood waters of that black people's city.
Early clues of incomprehensible smallness and wisdom fight with pride of goosefat latkes in a knock down drag out down and dirty fist fight, with biting and scratching and cheating and blood and dirt and copper and songs of black eye and turnip greens, mustard greens, sesame seeds, and bing, songs of bing means respect, songs of bing means understanding, means acceptance, means asimilation, means ABC not FOB, without which there's not much to the fight but sharp margins of tigerstripes and jungly richness.

Never trust anyone over 20.
They hide in the awkward folds of rich black hoodies. Say no when you want to say yes. Look through the dark, sweet, thick purple swamp in your glass to the dark you on the other side. Unexpected poverty mingles with kidney bean, red currant, and donated notebook.
Your grandmother is watching you with your stupid opposable thumbs. Have you heard about the drunken monkey? The drunken monkey is a monkey and enjoys drunkenness so she likes to eat the bloated rotting guavas as well as the shiny fresh ones so there is more food she likes so she is less likely to starve to death before making her little stoned baby monkeys. Some day one of her grandchildren will be your grandmother. More or less.
A wet and wild dullness of hazed out misunderstanding. Protected by delirium as the vines are by the ants who live in their shade and kill anything else that tries to grow in the neighborhood. They must get some ant version of buzzed off the fallen grapes and they guard their disco very jealously. Who domesticated what?

Never trust anyone out of diapers.
Grow up big and strong in the second act, still so far from the close, from the finish, from the bottle is empty it ain't worth a damn. Streams of turbulent tropical fruit come bubbling down the earthenware broccolies. A crudely broken bough ripped down as a weapon, aimed at the themes of noise in the banana trees, in the new phase. Terracotta red, unmarked cigarettes at the center of the mystery. The sip is older now, smarter and dumber, different, doesn't know much, isn't self-satisfied at this point, doesn't understand its place amid the marks of luscious licorice berries.
Right now is the perfect moment for this vintage, having matured past the point of disconsolate restlessness. Stage by rotten stage. The golden braid at the center is buffeted by the coarse, icy waves of sandpaper. Tossed over the shoulder of control and taken as a war bride to a place strange, unfamiliar, dangerous but with a something of something that could be home in it. A creepy painting hanging above a weird kind of stove, but someone must like it. The gooey center is what stays pure time after phase.

Never trust anyone who promises not to hurt you.
There can't be said to be a true climax. Aged at half the rate of a typical Bramb, there is instead steady but uneven growth. Spurts of change and gradual foment that don't make sense together, even several you-know-whats later. Nothing fully fades, but leaves stratified landmarks of the confusion of the days, the years, the decontextualized beats of the rise.

Never trust anyone apple red pear.
Beat the drum. Sing the song. Cry the surprising lover. We are better than we were. We are not as good as we will be. We won't make sense to each other tomorrow, but we will the next day. Can you pick up on that one incessant demand? That pleading frightened sound in the back of the evening? As much as everything has already changed, everything is still going to change. As much as the little boat, the little feather, the little idea is tossed around mercilessly, there is something that never fades or grows, that can flex but not forget. It's all but impossible to recognize though, amidst the din of all the other stuff in there, the stuff that demands attention, sour to the point of neglect. You've got to fight, fight, fight for your mind, mind, mind.


Varietal: Brambscott Scaramouche
Food Pairings: Murmurs, shouts