Tours for Free Colorado.

This book will cost you $18.95, but the places it will take you are free.

Mike Taylor

Author jodi Jill's "Tours for Free Colorado" describes more than 100 free tours, most of them of businesses that celebrate a vast range of entrepreneurial creativity alive in the state.

Tours of breweries and winemakers dominate the pages-Jill covers more than 50 of them - but she also highlights ventures like Cheese Importers in Longmont, the Buckhorn Llama Co. and Hazel Dell Mushrooms in Loveland.

Van Briggle Pottery in Colorado Springs, Michael Ricker Pewter in Estes Park, and Boulder's Leanin' Tree Publishers, the largest publisher of Western and wildlife greeting cards in the world, also will show you around for free.

To help frugal readers decide if a trip is warranted, tours are categorized by city and region: metro Denver, northeast, southeast, southwest and northwest Colorado.

And the businesses are worth reading about even if you never find time to go there.

For example, Jill describes how Enstrom Candies in Grand Junction began as a mom and pop operation in 1960 and now is a third-generation business that produces 2,000 pounds of toffee every weekday. She also takes readers through the toffee-making process, pointing out that 20 pounds of butter are included in every 70-pound batch of toffee.

Another aspect of the...