If you go with the Stew Mac ColorTone liquid dyes, you can use these with either alcohol or water (or even nitro lacquer, I think). Looking through my Dan Erlewine book on finishing, it sounds like the best stuff to for dying is what they call NGR (Non Grain Raising) reducer, which is alcohol with glycol ether added. Supposedly this stuff doesn't raise the grain like water, but evaporates more slowly than alcohol. You can also find pre-mixed NGR-based stains from Behlen at
Garrett Wade, as well as NGR reducer.
I haven't tried this myself, but have been trying to talk myself into a tele build, and have been thinking about green or blue dyed ash. I'd really like to get my hands on some scrap ash to experiment with first, though.