Jose Davalos distilled family heritage and do-it-yourself drive into a new tequila brand “I want my tequila to speak for itself,” Jose Davalos says. He says this after he talks for a couple of hours about the history of his family and how they came to be creators and purveyors of the liquor that bears their name.

Too many people see drinking as little more than the pursuit of an alcoholic buzz, or social lubrication. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Born in Spokane and raised in Texas, Ted Hartwell came to Vegas in 1991 for all the unusual reasons — scouring Yucca Mountain for archeological sites as a member of the research faculty of the Desert Research Institute and playing cello in the Las Vegas Philharmonic. However, living in this city excavated something destructive in his personality.