Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women, nonbinary and gender-diverse writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.
I was the ultimate small-town cliché: the kid who constantly talked about wanting to leave. I wasn’t picky about how I got out — both getting into college and becoming a dragon-riding Chosen One with a destiny-defining Quest seemed like equally attractive and plausible options. One day my grandmother, frustrated that I was constantly bad-mouthing the Middle Tennessee town where she’d built half her life, asked, “What do these other places even have that we don’t?”
The fact was, I didn’t actually know what all those giant, big-city buildings held. I just assumed it was more interesting than my then-current life of after-school hangouts in the Walmart parking lot. So, put on the spot, I gave her the only answer I had:
“Coffee shops.”
We lived in an espresso desert. There weren’t any cozy independent coffee shops in my town. We didn’t even have a Starbucks — just a half-built Dunkin’ whose construction I followed like a Bostonian in withdrawal. Every few years someone would open a new cafe, drawing in my classmates and teaching us exciting new words like “macchiato” and “chai,” but the businesses would inevitably fold within a year.
Or so I thought. I later learned there was a coffee shop — every inch the charming hideaway with fresh-baked scones I’d been yearning for — a mere three-minute drive from my house. It had opened when I was 12 and remains open to this day. I simply didn’t discover its existence until I was leaving. (For college — not the dragon thing, unfortunately.) I’d been so focused on exploring the world that I never bothered to explore my home.
Now Nashville is my home, and I’ve learned from the complacency of my youth. I will take every chance I can to discover more of this endlessly evolving city. Recently, that chance came in the form of a Pride Month coffee crawl organized by Matryoshka Coffee. Thirty-six shops in and around Nashville made unique Pride-themed drinks that were available for two weeks only. I had a mere 14 days to try as many special little gay drinks as possible.
Quest accepted.
As with all great adventures, mine started with a spreadsheet. I made a list of every single stop, along with detailed notes on operating hours, driving distance and drink choice. I charted a course, I consulted the oracles, and I set out into the unknown. While I made sure to hit my regular spots (shoutout to Flora + Fauna and Ugly Mugs, who absolutely killed it as always), my goal for this crawl was to find places I’d never visited before. Luckily, with 36 participants, I had plenty of exciting new options.
For most of my quest I explored alone. That might seem sad, but I actually love a solo adventure. Adult life is busy, and if I waited for my friends’ schedules to align every time I wanted to try a new bakery, I’d miss out on a lot of great croissants. Besides, there’s something precious about claiming moments for yourself, sitting in a window seat with your thoughts and a drink named after the Chappell Roan song that’s been stuck in your head for weeks (8th & Roast’s “Peach Pony Club” or The Village Forager’s “Good Luck Babe” — take your pick). While I was excited to tell the tale of my quest later, in the moment those experiences were all mine to savor.
Of course my quest wasn’t only about coffee. Coffee was just the plot device that sent me There and Back Again. At my first shop, Bagelshop, I had a Troye Sivan-inspired drink and a rainbow bagel. That would have been nice all on its own, but afterward I decided to explore the businesses around it as well. I discovered a comic-book store, and the smell of glossy color issues brought me all the way back to that small town I left behind.
There’d been a comic-book store back home — the center of my small universe once upon a time. It’s years gone now, and in that moment I missed it so much I almost started weeping in front of the Funko Pops. Instead I just thanked that rainbow bagel for giving me this new place to love.
That’s the thing with discoveries. They’re like dominos, one leading into the next. A coffee run leads you to a comic-book store, a park, a new friend, a new song, a new chapter of your life. By Day 14 of the crawl, I’d hit 24 total stops, 12 of them completely new to me. I’d gone to a coffee shop inside a drum store, a hotel and a flower shop. I ventured to the exotic land of Donelson and tracked down a pop-up at a bookstore’s birthday party. I’d found new thrift stores and gay bars and taco places. I made my world a little bigger, one coffee shop at a time.
