39 Signs You Learned to Drink in Portsmouth, NH

 

6. You’ve exchanged your parking tickets for beers at the Portsmouth Brewery.

 

7. You know you have to start drinking at 4 because the bars close at 12:30, but you also know that closing time is the halftime show between the bar and the after-party.

 

8. You’ve peed in Prescott Park while giggling about the ‘PISS-cataqua!’

 

9. You’ve had more than one drunken conversation with the statue outside the Langdon House.

 

10. You’ve bought beer at a Farmer’s Market.

 

11. You’ve dodged snowballs in the annual Market Square snowball fight while bar-hopping.

 

12. You voted for your bartender in the city council race.

 

13. People recognize you in the grocery store as ‘that guy/girl who sang karaoke last night at D-street’ even though you don’t even remember being there.

 

14. You spar joke for joke with Mark when he’s bouncing at the Coat of Arms.

 

15. You have woken up in a half-eaten pile of food from Gilley’s food cart.

 

16. Buck at the Rusty Hammer knows what you’re drinking before you do.

 

17. You’ve suggested that town meetings be held at Joe’s NY Pizza at 12 am because more people would show up.

 

18. Every major dispute in your friend group can be solved with the hoop machine or big buck hunter at D-street.

 

19. You have gotten day drunk off cheap Tuesday Margaritas at the Blue Mermaid.

 

20. You have enough pictures of yourself posing with the Prescott Park ‘Whale Penis Statue’ to fill an album.

 

21. You have made friends with at least a dozen sailors whose names you’ve forgotten.

 

22. You’ve waited out a hurricane in Fat Belly’s while listening to storm-themed music.

 

23. Ever since you won that free beer that time, you live to guess the daily trivia at the Jimmy LaPanza lounge in the bottom of the Portsmouth Brewery.

 

24. You’ve been to at least one party on the deck of the Union Street Factory or in the basement of the Brewster house.

 

25. You know Caffe Killim is the only place with hangover-curing coffee — if you can brave seeing everyone from the night before in line.

 

26. You have gone night skinny-dipping at Pirate’s Cove beach.

 

27. You own beer growlers from at least four local breweries.

 

28. You’ve attended more Booze Cruises than you would ever admit to, “just to see a friends’ band play.”

 

29. You’ve danced to thriller dressed as a zombie in the Halloween Parade.

 

30. You’ve winter hiked Mt. Washington without a problem, but taken a digger drunkenly walking the icy bricks in Market Square.

 

31. Whether hiking Franconia Ridge, climbing Rumney Rocks, or surfing Wallis Sands, you know that cans of 603 are the only all-sport item to bring with you.

 

32. You have used the cigarette machine at D-street and you don’t even smoke.

 

33. Your Sunday morning is spent drinking Bloody Mary’s at the Radici brunch and erasing Facebook photos of you from Gaslight upstairs the night before.

 

34. You’ve gone to the Portsmouth Brewery during your lunch break because an anonymous informant told you they were tapping a secret keg of Kate the Great.

 

35. You know the relative six-pack pricing at Provisions, Middle Street Market and Cabot Street — and you refuse to buy beer at one if it’s cheaper at a different one.

 

36. You pour your wine into coffee cups for the Prescott Park concert series.

 

38. You’ve realized you spent the night at the decks when you wake up smelling like Jimmy Juice, fish, and cigarette smoke.

 

39. You can solve any problem with a cask beer at the Coat of Arms.