The forsythia was blooming and that means one thing to this hungry pilgrim: Shad Roe! It will surely kill me one day (it's loaded with cholesterol) but I love the stuff. It is hyper-seasonal and local, and hard to find.

Shad roe is the eggs of the shad fish that used to spawn in prodigious numbers up the Connecticut, Housatonic, Hudson, Delaware, and other mid-Atlantic and New England rivers. The Hudson Valley is famous for shad roe, and it was in great demand years ago in the finest restaurants and hotels in Manhattan. Cole Porter asks for it in "Let's Fall in Love".  

So we set out to explore the Hudson Valley, knowing that even if we missed the roe it would be a fun drive. We make a version of this trip every year, but it's not always during shad roe season. We make a point to visit our old favorite Olana, a grand house built by a wealthy landscape painter in the mid-1800s. It's worth the trip just to visit that house!

But I was on a mission, and I had additional targets of opportunity in mind. The Hudson Valley is a very rich source of foodie goodness, even for those who inexplicably don't care for shad roe. There are many cheesemakers and dairies, plenty of farmers markets, and a number of well-heeled little towns that see a regular influx of dollars from the big city down the river.

There is plenty more to see in the area, of course. There are many historic homes to visit, including the FDR presidential library and home in Hyde Park. Hyde Park is also home to the famed Culinary Institute of America. In addition to Rhinebeck's fine shopping and excellent locavore market, you can visit the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome and see real Fokkers and Spads and older "aeroplanes" and even get a ride in an old biplane.

That's all very nice for your everyday tourist in the Hudson Valley, but we had come some miles and had not yet achieved my primary objective.  

To be honest, shad roe is not pretty. It looks like a cross between fish and liver. But the taste is worth the search... so we pressed on. Sometimes you see hand-lettered signs by Route 9 advertising shad roe up one side street or another, but it was getting too late to count on that sort of serendipity, so at Poughkeepsie we crossed the Hudson and made tracks for Gadaleto's, an excellent fish market in the pretty, bustling college town of New Paltz, just south of the Catskills.

Well, since we were across the river anyway, we were just a very few short miles from Gardiner, NY, home of Tuthilltown Spirits, makers of Half Moon Orchard Gin. Followers of my Artisanal Gins of New England page know that I have been seeking this elusive spirit since first hearing about it early last year.

What a discovery! Best of Show goes to the excellent Tuthiltown Spirits shop, at which I finally procured the long-anticipated gin but also some interesting new bitters, a real pomegranate grenadine from Jack Rudy Cocktail Co., and an excellent dry sparkling cider from nearby Aaron Burr Cidery.

There are a few things that have made the Half Moon Orchard Gin particularly interesting to me: the base spirit is distilled from local apples and wheat, giving it a mild base flavor similar to the Karner Blue Gin from New Hampshire and the Nashoba Perfect 10 from Massachusetts.

The botanicals (cleverly displayed in a gin bottle a the shop) include the usual suspects, but also less common flavors like elderberry, almond, lemon zest and bergamot. I bought a bottle and will write it up soon on the Gins page.