Brewed in 500 Square Feet. Sold in a Cat Café. This Is Sarasota Kombucha.

Five hundred square feet.

That's the whole Boombacha Kombucha brewery, per its own About page, tucked into the Limelight District northeast of downtown Sarasota. Most of us have a garage bigger than that, and ours is full of beach chairs we don't use.

Each batch starts with green tea and sugar and sits for about three weeks. Then they add the flavor: fruit juices, tea and spices. Three weeks! I can't wait three minutes for a parking spot on St. Armands.

The part I respect most

Their About page says, and I'm quoting, "You'll never hear us tout a benefit that we can't back up!"

A kombucha company promising not to promise things. In this economy. Every other bottle in America claims it will fix your gut, your mood and your credit score. Boombacha's pitch is basically: it's tangy, it's fizzy, it's good. Same energy as their homepage, which says they make kombucha with "passion without pretension." Love it!

Where it goes after the little room

This is the fun bit. Pull up their Find Us page and it reads like somebody's very full Saturday:

• Katy's Cat Cafe on Boulevard of the Arts, so yes, you can drink it under supervision of a cat
• The 24th Hour, a Pilates and yoga studio on Bee Ridge Road, for people who earn it
• Lucky 8 Luncheonette on Osprey Avenue, which picked up a 2026 Michelin Bib Gourmand. Gumbo, then kombucha. Balance!
• Fogartyville Community Media and Arts Center, because the people making community media get thirsty too
• Lab SRQ, a coworking space on Main Street, for the Zoom call you're pretending to pay attention to
• Kurtos Chimney Cake on Main, so you can undo all of the above with a spiral of sugar
• 99 Bottles taproom, Seagrape Wine Company and Ringling College, plus coffee shops all the way up to Banyan Coffee Co. in Palmetto and Orange Blossom Coffee in Bradenton

That's more than 30 stops for a brewery about the size of a two-car garage. A few are old friends, too: The Empanada Girl and the Bitty Bagels pop-ups are both on the list. The bottles have a longer commute than I do.

What to order

At FushiPoke downtown, the menu lists Smooth Operator (lemon, hibiscus and passionfruit) along with Lemonade, Ginger Lime and Passionfruit. Seagrape Wine Co. carries Smooth Operator in a 16-ounce bottle. Hibiscus turns it pink, and a pink drink on a hot October afternoon feels like a reward I didn't earn and am taking anyway.

Go Sunday

The easiest one-stop move: the Farmers' Market at Lakewood Ranch at Waterside Place, which is on Boombacha's stockist list. Sundays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., year round. Grab a bottle, then go find the Hofmann's liquor cakes and the key lime pie on a stick at the same market. Now that's a Sunday!

The little brewery itself is at 2257 6th Street, Sarasota. For wholesale, there's a form on their site.

One more sip

If you want to keep the local pantry going, this morning's Sunshine Canning jams are made just up the road in Bradenton. And Sandy has the rest of the week and this week's meetups if you need somewhere to bring your bottle.

Three weeks in a tiny room, then off to the cat café. Honestly? Goals.

— Marina