Brian Ellison confirms what I’d suspected: Cedar Ridge Winery and Distillery, original producers of Death’s Door gin and vodka, drowned along with the rest of Cedar Rapids. Flood recovery prospects are unknown. Most of Death’s Door’s distilling was recently moved over to the new Yahara Bay distillers in Madison—started by Nick Quint, the cousin of of Cedar Ridge distiller Jeff Quint, but still. “It’s a big mess,” writes Brian, promising more soon. Cedar Ridge got a big bump recently thanks to this NYT article on the booming artisanal spirits biz. (Gin: It’s the new beer.)

In other news, my camera bit it yesterday, just after I got done commiserating with a fellow Powershot A520 owner about the persistently sticky shutter that you have to manually coax open with a precise flick of the index finger or imprecise whack on the thigh. Be careful what you wish for.