Tim Creehan has risen to culinary heights in Destin, Fla., but the home of the beautiful white beaches isn’t where he started.

The award-winning chef was born in Hartford, Conn., and spent much of his childhood and young adult life in Baton Rouge, La. That is where he began his culinary career, which included time as executive chef in Donaldsonville, La., at age 19.

From his early beginnings…

Tito Beveridge ambled over to our group from Covey Rise with a loose, easy gait and a generous cheshire grin. The broad smile seemed to be an invitation to fun. The test tubes in his hand, used to sample vodka, confirmed it.

Produced in Austin, Tito’s Handmade Vodka comes from Texas’ first legal distillery. And on our tour of his distillery, the affable owner himself served as our host, talking not only about his business but his connections to the countryside.

“I’m from San Antonio,” he said, “so I grew up quail hunting south Texas.”

His family once owned the property of Joshua Creek Ranch, one of the finest places for upland hunting in the nation.

The connection between hunting and fine liquor is clear. What hunter doesn’t toast a successful day in the field?

But Tito’s path to producing vodka is more circuitous…

Northern goose down is the finest insulating material known to man–at least for clothing to keep you alive under the worst conditions. Down is the ultra-fine, almost weightless plumage that lies between the skin and the outer feathers of ducks and geese. It’s at its best in Arctic waterfowl, and the term ‘eiderdown’ is found in accounts of Arctic exploration going back centuries, the eider being a duck common to Scandinavia. Any material that can insulate a swimming bird in the frigid waters of the Arctic must be good insulation.

Although feathers and down have been traditional materials for quilts and comforters for eons, down presents two major problems when used in clothing: First, it tends to settle, clumping in one spot; and second, it is very difficult to confine with even the finest stitching.

In 1936, a Seattle sporting-goods dealer named Eddie Bauer solved both problems, perfecting not only a method of quilting articles of clothing to hold the down in place, but also a means of keeping the pesky little down fibers from worming their way out of the garment.