From the Sunday NY Times

[lsanderson]

Farmyard Stills Quench a Thirst for Local Spirits
By SUSAN SAULNY

ATCHISON, Kan. — The main still of the High Plains liquor company here was scraped together from junked parts of an old food processing plant. The tubing for the bottling equipment had been used to milk cows, and one of the tanks was actually an industrial vacuum cleaner.

The whole clanking operation, headquartered on a farm northwest of Kansas City, looks like a patchwork contraption out of the imagination. And that is basically what it was two years ago when Seth Fox, a cattle rancher down on his luck, decided to get a license to distill some vodka and a little whiskey.

“I talked to banks, told them I wanted to make vodka on my farm here, and they said, ‘Yeah, right you are,’” recalled Mr. Fox, whose company went on to become the first distillery in Kansas since Prohibition. “Well, I had a million dollars in sales last year.”

“I’m the seventh generation to be in alcohol,” he said proudly. “Just the first to do it legally.” More

Frugal Traveler | Seattle
Sampling the Best of the Northwest
By MATT GROSS

THE dining room at Cascadia — one of Seattle's top restaurants, with a cutting-edge chef, luminous décor and a cellar lauded by Wine Spectator — was empty. No one sat on the green banquettes, eating Alaskan king crab with white-truffle gnocchi under the coppery mahogany paneling, and empty wineglasses sparkled on white tablecloths. Only an occasional wandering waiter disturbed this stillness.

Across a frosted-glass divider, however, Cascadia's bar growled with energy. Every stool was taken on this Friday night, and upscale Seattleites mobbed the lounge and the sidewalk tables, where the setting sun warmed their faces and melted the ice in their cocktails. Of course no one was at dinner — this was happy hour. More