Postcards from Portland

[trip style = urban + beach & sun + food & wine + weekend getaway]

Portland is one of our most requested cities for Trip Styler-approved recommendations. As I tend to visit the City of Roses between the fall and spring, I decided to venture down for a summer getaway in the Pacific Northwest. Known for its award-winning restaurant scene, easygoing lifestyle and friendly locals, Portland offers a guaranteed good time. Besides the usual brunches, happy hours, bike rides and tax-free shopping, I set my sights on two spots I'd been meaning to visit: Sauvie Island and the Multnomah Whiskey Library. Together they make the perfect Portland day. We all know about après-ski and the nineteenth hole—let's make après-beach part of our social practice!

Things to know: Hotel rooms and Airbnbs are pricey and hard to come by during the summer, so plan ahead, stay outside town or snag a last-minute room on Hotel Tonight. I booked the Ace in late April for a July stay, and the rate was twice what I've paid during the winter.

Hot dogs or legs?! We chased the sun to Sauvie Island {pronounced saw-vee or soh-vee}, about 30 minutes north of the city, on a 37°C day. The most popular beaches, Collins and Walton, face the Columbia River. The northern end of Collins beach is clothing optional. Beware of sand so hot it will burn your feet ... etc. ;-)

Pack a picnic basket and stop for berries at one of the many farm markets and pumpkin patches on the island. Looking for a hike? There are a several 2-3-mile trails on the island. Can't get enough? Plan your trip around one of several long table dinners over the summer or stay in this modern farm cottage.

Things to know: Purchase a daily parking permit {$7 usd} on the east side of the island from the Reeder Beach RV Country Store or just north of the bridge from the Cracker Barrel Store to park in all beach and wildlife areas.

"I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany." I couldn't help but quote Ron Burgundy while sitting in a tufted leather couch in the Multnomah Whiskey Library. As I watched bar-backs climb rolling ladders like Belle in Beauty and the Beast to access one of the 1,500 bottles of liquor, including 900 whiskeys, I marveled at the attention to detail and spectacle of the place.

One of the most unique features of the bar is the personal touch. Your cocktails are mixed and your whiskey is poured right in front of you by a bartender who wheels over a bar cart. I started with a 12-year-old Ezra B single-barrel bourbon that my bartender selected for me after I told her what I liked and my price point, followed by a delicious cocktail. Their most popular cocktail is the Old Fashioned, which my friend called the best she's ever had. Two drinks and a few hours later, we pulled ourselves off the leather couch and into the warm evening, passing dozens of people waiting to get inside.

Things to know: Anticipate a long wait for this popular, seated bar. Put in your name and wait in the new Green Room bar below the Library as you sip on a low-proof cocktail designed to open your palate while you wait to be seated upstairs.

This post is written by Trip Styler's Assistant Wayfarer/Editor Heather.

Related
Oregon Travel Diary :: Feasting on Portland
That Travel Meal :: Pok Pok Som Thai Basil Gin Rickey
Pant-Stretching Portland
Fashion Friday :: Falling for Portland

[images via @heatherlovesit & dana avila photography]

That Travel Meal :: Pok Pok Som Thai Basil Gin Rickey

[trip style = food + wine]

Editor's Note: In our "That Travel Meal" series, we recreate memorable dishes or drinks we've tasted while trip styling around the globe. Don't miss our previous posts with recipes for burrata and chèvre-prosciutto-pear-arugula pizza. 

Whenever I'm in Portland, I have to stop by one of Andy Ricker's restaurants for two things: Fish sauce chicken wings and drinking vinegar cocktails. Even if the idea of drinking vinegar makes you pucker your lips and say "heckkkkk no" you must try it—I've changed the tune of many skeptics with this creative cocktail.

Also known as shrubs, drinking vinegars have been around this continent since colonial times as a health tonic and form of fruit preservation. They've been around Europe even longer; Hippocrates prescribed apple cider vinegar with water and honey to cure coughs and Roman soldiers drank sour wine or vinegar with honey as a daily indulgence. These days drinking vinegars have regained popularity as craft cocktail mixers.

Pok Pok Som drinking vinegars, inspired by Southeast Asian street drinks, can be purchased online or in local specialty grocers. My favorite flavour, Thai Basil, is tart, sweet and peppery, and pairs well with cucumber gin and soda. This cocktail, inspired by my visits to Pok Pok, will make you dream of Phuket—or maybe just Portland.

Pok Pok Som Thai Basil Gin Rickey
- 1 oz Pok Pok Som Thai Basil Drinking Vinegar
- 2 oz Hendrick's Gin
- Squeeze of lime
- Ice cubes
- 4 oz soda 
- Cucumber slices
- Lime slices
- Fresh mint

Instructions
- Combine drinking vinegar, gin, lime and ice cubes in a cocktail shaker.
- Shake until chilled and well mixed.
- Pour into glass, top with soda and stir.
- Garnish with cucumber slices, lime slices, mint sprigs and extra ice as desired.

Trip Styler Tip: Forget the gin for an almost-as-amazing mocktail or swap gin for whiskey or mezcal for a smokier spritzer. Play with the drink; you really can't go wrong!

This post is written by Trip Styler's Assistant Wayfarer/Editor Heather.

Related
That Travel Meal :: Best-in-Show Burrata at Ava Gene's
That Travel Meal :: Chevre-Prosciutto-Pear-Arugula Pizza

[photos by @heatherlovesit]

Fashion Friday :: Falling for Portland

[trip style = urban]

Fashion Friday posts are published on the last Friday of every month by fashion blogger Heather

Tax-free shopping. Need I say more? No, but while we're on the topic, I must mention that the City of Roses, famous for its culinary and coffee scene, cycle culture and offbeat tv show, has some pretty killer shops where you can spend your tax-free dollars. Here are a couple of my downtown favorites...

Around the corner from my favorite Portland hotel, the Ace, is my favorite Portland shop, frances may, where you can find lines like Rachel Comey, Lizzie Fortunato, APC, Suno, Rag & Bone, Wings & Horns and Gitman Brothers. You can also spend some quality time chatting with friendly shop girl, Ashley.

Just up the road, you'll find Alder & Co., a well-curated home, accessories and clothing store. Just a warning: It's almost impossible to leave without buying something!

Portland mini shopping guide {for women & men}
- Una
- Filson
- The Woodlands
- Odessa

[photos via frances may, alder & co., portland mercury, luckymag, travel portland]

Spotlight :: PDX'ing in Pictures

[trip style = urban]

Last weekend I was in Portland for the third time in just over a year. I swear, a NASA-grade laser beam keeps drawing me back. And it's not just me; anyone I talk to who's visited once, always becomes a lifer, gobbling up a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g to do with the trip style = urban playground.

What I love about PDX'ing is the farm-to-table, handmade, bike-everywhere spirit. In no other city would someone inquire if my vest was handmade or give directions as if I was biking. Similarly, when I asked the hotel concierge where to shop in the area, he told me about a bunch of independent boutiques, purposefully failing to mention any of the department stores or chain shops like Anthropologie in the area.

Brunch. Tasty n Sons: A neighborhood bistro with a menu that's anything but. Think breakfast tapas like griddled bacon wrapped dates with maple syrup and almond, or sweet biscuits with warm blueberry compote and creme anglais. Trip Styler Tip :: If you want to avoid the brunch rush, go early around 8.45am to secure a table for the 9am open. If you can't get up early, get in line and send your partner to Ristretto Rosters down the street for a coffee.

Brunch. Broder: Scandinavian fare in the Pacific Northwest. Whatever you do, make sure you sample a potato pancake, pictured above.

Shop. Beckel Canvas: After brunching at Broder, walk down the street to Beckel Canvas, a family-run business operating out of a little production facility and storefront in an area filled with family homes. They make all their products---from canvas totes to duffels to tents---on site.

Shop. Schoolhouse Electric Supply & Co: Filament bulbs, deco-modern lights and minimalist decor in a massive brick warehouse with a flower shop and coffeehouse in the space.

Shop. Hawthorne District: Vintage clothing and furniture shops galore. While there, I could have picked up a million things for the home, but I resisted and snapped up a vintage 70s Coach bag {made in NYC before production was shipped overseas} instead.

Related Content
Spotlight Portland {part deux}
Spotlight Portland {part one}
Ace Portland
Jetset Jingles :: Portland
IMG_FRI :: Portlandia
Vancouver to Seattle Must-Stops

[photos by @tripstyler @nate_fri @heatherlovesit]