49 Voices: Ylli Ferati

Originally published on Alaska Public Media

FERATI: When I first got into it, I got thrown behind the bar, and people come in, they order whiskey and ask you questions of how does it taste, what do you think, this and that. I didn’t like whiskey at first, so throughout the days, I just started trying different things and came across a certain bottle, the Balvanie, and decided, “Wow, I really like this stuff.” It took me a while.

A couple years ago, say about five years ago, I had a guy from Diageo come in, and he was a master of whiskey. And he walked into the bar with their reps, and he takes a stop and he looks left and right.And the first words out of his mouth were, “I can’t believe this is in a neighborhood bar in Spenard.

People come now and they want to try new things. I do classes and stuff like that. They just love it; they want to learn. They love to learn. And that’s kinda propelled my whiskey knowledge.

As far as I know, nobody’s ever came to say [otherwise], but we have the biggest whiskey collection in Alaska. I was just put in a Thrillist arcticle for top whiskey bar in the state. Pretty honorable. It’s still growing, there’s bottles added every week.

We want you to relax, enjoy, have a good time. Especially if you’re at the bar. Meeting my regulars, and everybody… it makes the bar seem fun. It makes my job fun to ee everybody else happy.

49 Voices: Hannah Dorough

Alaska, Audio, Uncategorized

Originally published in Alaska Public Media

Dorough: I really enjoy having a flip phone. I lost it on an airplane and I had to get a different phone, but they didn’t sell the Razrs anymore, because everyone moved into the smartphone era. So I had to go to GCI and I got one of those drug dealer phones that are prepaid, and you put $50 on them every month and you drop them in the garbage bin when you’re done, and move on with life.

So now I have a different black, shiny flip phone that is not a Razr. But I recently dropped it down like, 15 different stairs and it hit each one on the way down. And it survived perfectly fine. A lot of people like it because they think it’s like a throwback. And they always want to play on it. And they ask if I have games. I don’t have games.

And then some people really don’t like it, and they tell me multiple, multiple, multiple times in conversation that I need to get a different phone. I’m like no, shush.

People keep telling me I need to get Snapchat. I don’t want to get Snapchat. I don’t want Instagram. I don’t want these things. They sound so complicated.

49 Voices: Carolina Vidal

Alaska, Audio, Uncategorized

Originally published in Alaska Public Media

VIDAL: At first I started calling myself a word I made up — “Piñateur” — which is silly because it has some Spanish and French, but now I’m just the owner of The Piñata Shop.

Almost a year ago, my now-seven-year-old was about to turn seven, and she asked me for a Trolls-themed birthday party. And she doesn’t have to twist my arm to make a party. I enjoy parties a lot. I was an event and wedding planner in Mexico and I worked doing the same in New Jersey. I knew I wasn’t going to find it in Anchorage, because I knew when I’d seen piñatas before. I think I know piñatas; I’d been around them all my life. Usually, by the time the second kid hits it, it’s broken in pieces, and I thought they were very fragile and not very well made.

So I told her, “I’m going to make you a piñata. And she want the cloud guy. She wanted the cloud to rain candy once it was broken. And I gave it a shot, and I loved how it turned. And that was the beginning of it.

I wanted to do something different, so I went for a salmon, a humpy salmon. And I loved how it turned out, and my husband, the Alaska guy, was very proud. He took a picture of me holding the salmon piñata and sent it to all his relatives. And our neighbors and friends started looking at what I was doing, and I started getting orders from them.

I’ve seen them being whacked and people ask me, “doesn’t it hurt to see your work, and those hours invested in them, just being whacked.” And I say no. I thought it was going to be like that, but I’m excited for the kids. I’m like, “Get it! Harder! Come on, Johnny! Come on Lulu! Come on, go for it!” That’s nice for me to make their very first piñata and I have people coming back to me and asking for more.