Word: hudson
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Passaic, New Jersey! That crumbling, grumbling city across the Hudson from the gleaming skyline of New York, yet worlds removed from Manhattan magic. A place whose residents shiver in dour poverty, and whose most famous native sons and daughters had to leave town to make it big. The honor roll would include Joe Piscopo, Paul Rudd, Steely Dan's Donald Fagen, Gilligan's Island creator Sherwood Schwartz, three-time Oscar-winning producer Saul Zaentz, sitcom regulars Loretta Swit and Larry Storch, sports hysteric Dick Vitale...and, Be Kind Rewind tells us, the legendary pianist and composer Fats Waller...
...There were some undeniably big names in the audience - Daniel Day-Lewis, Keira Knightley, Anthony Hopkins, Kate Hudson, Ridley Scott, Ian McKellen - just not enough of them. After the first three rows, the faces became unfamiliar. Many of the high-profile nominees - George, Cate, Tommy Lee - were no-shows, and it quickly became clear that many famous attendees were there either to present an award or pick one up. Everybody had a job to do; nobody had just come for the party...
...Instantly you have a million questions. By which I mean: three. 1) Where did the creature come from? (The Hudson River? Or the Arctic, thawed out by climate change and sent south on tidal currents? Possibly Hoboken?) 2) What event roused it from a snooze that may date back to the dinosaur era? (Godzilla's rampage across Japan, you'll recall, was the spawn of atomic bombs dropped there.) 3) What, exactly, the heck...
Like generations of farmers before them, Ralph Erenzo and Brian Lee keep a still at their Hudson Valley granary and use it to concoct a corn bourbon with a smooth creamy flavor and sweet grainy aroma that would make any moonshiner proud. But what Erenzo and Lee are making isn't the illegal stuff of mountain legend and bootlegger capers; instead it's high-class hooch that is totally legal and helping lead a renaissance of handcrafted artisanal American spirits...
That's a driving force for Erenzo and Lee's Tuthilltown Spirits too. "We see this as being about creating a high-end product and also as a new way of providing revenue for small farms," says Lee. "Our Heart of the Hudson vodka is made from local apples. Right now we are working with local producers who are growing an heirloom corn for us that hasn't been grown in the U.S. in 400 years. Using local produce saves us in shipping costs and keeps the money local. Our success is the success of the small farmer...