This week: So! Much! Disco!

Hi Friends,

I do not need to tell you how cold it is. (Mamdani already did.) A few months ago no one could have anticipated exactly the horror of this polar vortex, but the event planners of the Hudson Valley must have had a sense.

These beautiful beings knew what would heal our souls in this dark time: Disco, baby!

It must come from the same ancient urges that created Wassail, no? Just as things seem a little too grim to bear, there’s the irrepressible need to create joy and light. You can do twig crowns and torches or platforms and glitter, but the underlying drive is the same.

We MUST party. We must party to survive.

Check out this weekend’s listings for disco dance parties, Galentine’s gatherings, and other ways to connect with your fellow shiny happy humans.

It was a challenge to keep the disco theme going for this week’s product recco. The 1970’s favored the “exotic,” which seemed to be a euphemism for colors and flavors not found in nature. I was not going to find a local dupe for Midori.

Fun fact: The Hudson Valley did have a local version of Cointreau! About 15 years ago, Tuthilltown Distilling made an orange liqueur, a cocoa liqueur and a white absinthe. Sadly, I polished off my own bottles of each before knowing they’d be holy Hudson Valley relics.

Fortunately, we have a solution in Liquid Mercantile’s Cacao Hazelnut Liqueur, which works perfectly in the very ‘70’s Brandy Alexander. Originally made with gin (which sounds gross), this luxuriant three part cocktail is simply cognac, creme de cacao, and heavy cream. It was invented in 1916 but found a resurgence in the disco era when it was requested by Our Lady of The Rotating Beret, Mary Tyler Moore in the pilot of her eponymous show and also led to John Lennon being 86’d from a bar in 1974 for heckling The Smothers Brothers. This is not a sentence I ever thought I’d write.

Make it extra local with cognac from local importer superstars PM Spirits and cream - or ice cream! - from Stewy’s.

Don’t tell me to fucking smile - Ending February 8 is “Crazy,” a group exhibition of 31 female and non-binary artists curated by Jaime Ransome which examines feminist rage, punk and Afropunk influence and political urgency. See it before your Galentine’s date.

Flash Bang - The second annual Galentine’s sip & shop at Day & Nite Lounge gathers local lady-owned businesses offering permanent jewelry, embroidery, pottery and flash tattoos, which are arguably also permanent jewelry.

Pick up some party pants - The Catskill Cocktail Club is back from hiatus (praise be!) and coming in hard with a Friday night warm up party. Canapé Vintage will be there to meet your last minute sartorial needs and Eat Two Five will have onigiri. A cocktail in one hand and an onigiri in the other keeps elbows free for funky chicken.

Dancing Bears - Global disco party Gimme Gimme Disco comes to Bearsville for a night of Bee Gees, Donna Summer and Cher in her original nose era. If you can’t get tickets to Disco Chalet, this’ll do it for ya.

Disco Chalet at Inness

It’s cold. Really cold. Which is why the apres-ski themed Disco Chalet is our pick of the week. The annual party at Inness returns with its biggest headliner yet- pioneering DJ Greg Wilson. Wilson is celebrating 50 years of DJing with a world tour showcasing the disco and funk edits that have kept generations moving on the dance floor. Wilson will be bringing his reel-to-reel tapes and creating live remixes in the fly, humbling even the purest of vinyl DJs.

Cheers,
Amy