Who benefits? It’s the classic detective’s starting point, right? But it’s been on my mind lately thanks not to a body in the billiards room but to my friend N., whom I hooked up with in New York after a gap of, oh, eight years. N.’s worked for years in the music industry, but has also, of late, gotten really into food—specifically, Mexican food. Multiple trips south have turned him into a terrific cook (or so I hear, at least) and he’s tossing around various ideas (classes; culinary tours) that might maybe someday blossom into an alternate career.

We’ve known each other since high school and reconnecting with him was one of the highlights of the trip. But he also turned out to be one of the best sounding boards I’ve found so far for the mess of ideas and half-baked theses bouncing around my brain.

“Who benefits?” he wondered, after I told him about the island, the hotel, and the wheat , the beer, and the booze.

It’s good question. Assuming a good year, the principals, obviously: Brian Vandewalle, Leah Caplan, Brian Ellison. The brewery. The distillery. And, of course, the farmers. But beyond this handful of invested few?

Indirect beneficiaries include the grain processor, the malter, and the trucker—who I haven’t met but apparently got so excited about the project that he, too, dug into his farming roots. Now, in addition to trucking grain off the island, he grows backup wheat over on the mainland. (Note to self: meet trucker.) Farther out in the world, beer distributors and liquor salespeople benefit. And I suppose you could make the case that, yes, craft beer drinkers and artisanal spirits enthusiasts benefit as well—though, frankly, that case would be kinda puffy.

But what about back on the island? Is there a benefit to the community itself? People tell me that 2007 was a banner year for the Washington Island Ferry. Record numbers of tourists made the extra step onto the Robert Noble and the Arni J. Richter. And at a basic rising-tide level of logic, all the other businesses on the island—the restaurants, the motels, the bars – benefit from the increased traffic. Can this traffic be tied directly to the success of Island Wheat? No. In fact, last year the Door County tourism board launched a PR initiative—funded by a hotly contested countywide room tax—designed to raise the profile of the peninsula and (reluctantly) the island statewide. (At a meeting last year a spokesperson for the commission boasted that he wanted Door County to become as big as the Wisconsin Dells. I swear I saw several islanders visibly blanch.) But given the amount of press generated by the hotel, the beer, and, most recently, the booze, it’s not a preposterous suggestion.

Since I’ve been up here I’ve fallen into (or, I confess, overheard) lots of conversations between tourists, summer people, and islanders. By all available evidence the growth of the wheat business—and the island-branded beer and liquor—is a point of no little pride. But you can’t eat pride, and the island still suffers a profound shortage of jobs outside the tourist industry. Most of the island’s produce still comes wrapped in plastic, straight off the Sysco truck—and the money that comes out of islanders’ pockets to pay for it goes straight back to the mainland. I’ve also heard, anecdotally, that the dedication of 900 acres of farmland to the cultivation of wheat may have inadvertently triggered an island-wide shortage of hay.

Who benefits? It’s not just a good question—it’s the question.

So, thanks a bunch, N. Now I have a lot more work to do.