The Jewish Single Malt Whisky Society enjoyed a recent visit to Tuthilltown Distillery in Gardiner:

Gable is one of these super-charming and disarming type guys.  A charismatic dude who knows his business quite well.  Gable went on to provide a tasting of their current line (at least the ones they could legally taste/sell in their tasting room/store):  Hudson New York Corn Whiskey, Hudson Baby Bourbon, Hudson Four Grain Bourbon, Hudson Manhattan Rye, Heart of the Hudson Apple Vodka (twice distilled), Spirit of the Hudson Apple Vodka (thrice distilled).

Their Vodkas, by the way, are Kosher for Passover as they are distilled from apples, not grain — Cheers on that!!

Photo of distiller at Tuthilltown posted under a Creative Commons license by Flickr user WilsonB.

Akira Ohiso of Zinc Plate Press snaps a picture of the now-defunct Academy Theater in Liberty, and muses:

Part of the Main Street revitalization of Liberty should include bringing this space back to life.

In a recent profile of the Rosendale Theatre Collective, New York Times writer Peter Applebome posits a simple test for how a town is doing:

One of the best barometers of whether a small town has a pulse is the old downtown movie house. If it has been knocked down, boarded up or turned into a porno place, the omens are not good. If it is hanging in there, that’s promising. If it’s been refurbished or somehow morphed into a beloved institution, chances are the town is just fine.

That's what a tipster claims over at Breathing Is Political:

I had a customer inform me two days ago that the home equity loan they were obtaining in order to purchase a small investment piece near them was turned down by GMAC because their home property was under a gas lease. I dug a little further and found through mortgage brokers that that they are encountering the same reluctance on the part of some local and some bigger banks to lend on leased properties. I hope those who have signed leases have figured this into the equation. A similar example would be as in the case of Flood Zone properties for whom the Flood Insurance program was withdrawn, banks would also not lend on those. In the real estate world, things like this are a huge consideration in factoring property values. Just thought some people might not be aware of this trend by lenders.

In the comments, realtor Jennifer Canfield names lenders she says are not lending on properties with gas leases: