Tuthilltown Spirits, LLC

Tuthilltown Spirits is the Gardiner, New York operation that's almost single-handedly responsible for the modern American craft whiskey movement on the East Coast — and the distillery whose Hudson Whiskey line was the first whiskey legally produced in New York State since Prohibition. Founded in 2003 by Ralph Erenzo and Brian Lee on the historic Tuthilltown Gristmill property in the Shawangunk Mountains foothills (the site is roughly 90 minutes north of Manhattan in Ulster County), Tuthilltown converted a restored 1788 gristmill complex into a small distillery and launched Hudson Whiskey as the brand identity for the bourbon and rye that came out of it. The historical and regulatory significance of the launch is hard to overstate. New York State had no licensed whiskey production from Prohibition until 2003, when Tuthilltown opened. The original Hudson Baby Bourbon and Hudson Manhattan Rye, bottled in distinctive squat 375ml bottles, became the editorial reference points for what East Coast craft American whiskey could look like, and the Hudson brand's success effectively triggered the New York Farm Distillery Act of 2007 — the state legislation that created the regulatory framework for the broader Hudson Valley and Finger Lakes craft distillery boom of the past two decades. Tuthilltown's success directly enabled the entire downstream NY craft distilling scene. William Grant & Sons (the Scottish family-owned spirits company that also owns Glenfiddich, Balvenie, Hendrick's G…