John Hickenlooper hosts economic development meeting in Denver: Bottoms up!

Hickenlooper.

Governor John Hickenlooper is revving up his eco-devo engine. Last month, he toured Colorado for four days, holding confabs in eight towns; Denver gets its turn today, at a Bottom-Up Economic Development Meeting at the Cable Center at the University of Denver. And have we got some ideas for him!

They may seem a little modest in the upscale environs of the Cable Center, an institution that celebrates another home-grown industry: cable, which got its start when cable cowboys took TV to the rural West and wound up building massive telecommunications empires.

We're starting small, but it's definitely bottoms up: Along with the Colorado Distillers Guild, the Colorado Bartenders Guild and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Westword is launching a Colorado Cocktail Contest. This state is already the Napa Valley of craft beers, as Hickenlooper likes to say, but it's also home to two dozen distillers making artisan spirits. And they'll get the chance to strut their stuff -- and give everyone a true taste of this state -- at a two-day Colorado Cocktail Contest celebration at MCA at the end of June. We'll be pouring out details in the weeks to come; in the meantime, you can read more about the contest here.

Next project: The Stash, a Colorado cannabis bank. We'll be firing up that concept soon.

Have an idea for Hickenlooper? The Metro Denver Bottom-Up Economic Development Meeting runs from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at the Cable Center, 2000 Buchtel Boulevard.

More from our Calhoun: Wake-Up Call archive: "Civic Center Eats will expand next summer: Keep on (gourmet food) truckin'."