WELCOME MAT
INSIDE this EDITION
DEPARTMENTS 08 THE WEEKLY CONVERSATION LEGENDS & LEGACIES
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14 FROM ASPEN, WITH LOVE WINEINK
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20 FOOD MATTERS 22 VOYAGES 34 AROUND ASPEN 38 LOCAL CALENDAR 46 CROSSWORD
WINEINK
WHY IS NAPA AN ICON? 17
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A&E ‘MAC AND CHEESE, PLEASE!” 32
FEBRUARY 7-13, 2013 • ASPENTIMES.COM/WEEKLY
GEAR | PAGE 14
CULTURE/CHARACTERS/COMMENTARY
WOODY CREEK DISTLLERS: FROM SEED TO SIP
27 COVER STORY
32 A&E
Writer Amanda Charles takes us on a tour of Woody Creek Distillers, the first craft distillery in the United States to produce vodka from seed to sip.
Arts editor Stewart Oksenhorn dives into everyone’s favorite comfort food while talking with “Mac & Cheese, Please!” author and cheese expert Laura Werlin.
SEE PAGE 27
GUEST OPINION
editor’s note | While the Aspen Times Weekly searches
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for a permanent editor, this space will be filled with the words of guest writers. HEARD AROUND THE WEST
The 700-pound bull with its huge rack was a regular in FROM COLORADO: Believe the upscale-even-for-Boulder me, we’re as sick as you are of downtown neighborhood, and reading about Boulder, Colo., reports conflict over whether he sometimes. But, still, behaved aggressively it might make a good or not, though he reality show location, did allegedly once except that most corner a mailman viewers would doubt on a resident’s porch the reality of even a for some time. reality show set here. Then he was killed, In early January, for right in town, by a instance, according gunshot, and hauled JONATHAN THOMPSON to the Daily Camera, away. Boulder police a man entered the initially denied any Dandelion medical marijuana involvement, before finally dispensary, sprayed employees confessing that an officer had with bear spray — sending one shot the elk for still undisclosed to the hospital — and got away reasons, perhaps involving some with 9,000 worth of marijuana. kind of injury. Another officer The bear-spray pot robber is still hauled the animal away for at large. No news yet on whether the meat. All kinds of protocol the National Pepper Spray was violated in the process, Association will suggest that if and the officers were put on everyone were armed with bear leave. Meanwhile, hundreds of spray, such incidents would emotional Boulderites gathered be avoided. for a candlelight vigil, and one That news was crowded resident took out a full-page ad out of early January’s Boulder in the Camera asking, tragically, crime annals by the mysterious “Why?” The elk got his own case of the Mapleton elk. Twitter account, posthumously,
A S P E N T I M E S W E E K LY
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Febr u ar y 7-13, 2013
FIND IT INSIDE
and tweeted a haunting cry from the grave: “Find me justice. I was just an elk who enjoyed the Mapleton Hill neighborhood.” In all the excitement, reports of coyotes harassing humans — even biting a runner — on the east side of town were barely noticed. TIDBITS FROM ALL OVER: Drug smugglers used a pneumatic cannon to shoot cans of marijuana over the border fence near San Luis, Ariz. While sledding near Evanston, Wyo., a group of children slid across the corpse of a homeless man, who turned out to be an heir to the considerable fortune of a Montana copper baron. Navajo tacos finally made their debut in Philadelphia, along with mutton stew and sweet frybread, at a “pop-up” restaurant called Shiprock. A group of Mormon women in Utah and across the world wore pants to church. Jonathan Thompson, based in Durango, Colo., is a senior editor for High Country News (hcn.org).
ON THE COVER Photo courtesy of Woody Creek Distillers
VOLUME 2 ✦ ISSUE NUMBER 12vw
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