Lots of booze-related news both national and local. Let’s get to it.

NATIONAL
We begin in California where, about two years ago, the ABC started enforcing the state’s ban on spirits infusions as more and more of these started showing up in cocktail bars. Now, however, tenders are free to infuse away, SFist reports.

Meanwhile, Utah moves in the opposite direction, tightening its already-tough alcohol rules. USA Today reports a one-year freeze on hard-liquor licenses for Utah restaurants, and a ban on the mini kegs known as chubbies (full-size kegs were already verboten). Side note: I am now totally obsessed with the term "Zion curtain."

LOCAL
On Slog, Seattle Nightlife and Music Association president and Red Door owner Peter Hanning makes the case for liquor privatization initiative 1183. Earlier this week Publicola reported that funds raised for and against the initiative, which will be on the ballot this November, already add up to $11.1 million.

In August, Eater Seattle’s Allecia Vermillion, noting that the Triple Door was the latest in a slew of Seattle restaurants to introduce a custom-beer collaboration, asked if a trend was not afoot. Glenn Drosendahl at the Puget Sound Business Journal took that idea and ran with it this week.

Also, big bar news for Capitol Hill: CHS blog got the scoop on Montana, the new bar that will replace the Buck on Olive Way. A partner in the project is Rachel Marshall of Rachel’s Ginger Beer, a soda that has sent a number of local food writers into a fizzy ginger-induced tizzy.

Meanwhile, Poppy’s beloved cocktail mixer Veronika Groth told Sauced that she is moving on to Chino’s, a new bar/casual eats destination taking over the space that once housed Oasis Cafe.