No. 92 July/August 2021

There’s a smell of salt in the air and the squawk of seagulls outside when I wake up many summer mornings in my Seattle home. A few gulps of iced coffee or tea help propel me out on a morning run or walk, covering the same paths and sidewalks I’ve traversed so many times, day after day, over the past year and a half.

So many of us kept close to home for so long that at times the rest of the world almost seemed like a fictitious place. But with vaccination rates rising and COVID numbers falling, and states and counties and cities increasingly opening back up, I’m not alone in heading further afield these days—seeing places and friends I’ve missed for too long, and covering different terrain as I venture out each day.

Summer’s the perfect season for getting reacquainted with old friends while sitting outside with a cold drink in hand. We can help you with that part: Mix up one of the recipes in our summer drinks feature, each of which was selected as being ideally suited for sipping beneath an open sky, whether it’s at a backyard barbecue or a picnic far from home. Breweries are great places to get together, too, as many have embraced the beer-garden model for outdoor drinking; Josh Bernstein brings you this story.

Give your day a flavorful start with a cold cà phê sữa đá—one of the Vietnamese coffee drinks increasingly found across the U.S., as Dan Dao reports. And discover the appeal of Ethiopian coffee and the culture behind it, as Nina Roberts profiles the founders of New York City’s Cafe Buunni. Of course, summer’s not all sunshine—recent years have revealed an emerging threat, as climate change has fueled widespread wildfires up and down the West Coast, affecting many area winemakers; Jennifer Fiedler brings us their stories.

We’ve also got cocktails made with passion fruit, the history of salt in cocktails, sparkling red wines perfect for warm-weather drinking, and a bartender’s personal story about navigating the past year’s challenges.

It’s summer, and the outdoors beckons, so get out there and enjoy.

—Paul Clarke