Please join us April 18th, our opening day, for an evening tour of the greenhouses and a cocktail party with our friends from Caledonia Spirits. We will start at 5:00, take a walk around the greenhouses at 6:00, and get to see old and new friends to kick off our season with a spring celebration. Heidi Mahoney will be serving up some delicious herb-themed snacks, Caledonia Spirits will be serving sample tastes of their award winning vodka and gin, and we will have a cash bar featuring a special cocktail made with our herbs and more of that special gin and vodka.
I first met Todd Hardie, owner of Caledonia Spirits, in 2001. At the time, he had another very special business called Honey Garden Apiaries. Todd and his staff kept bee yards throughout the Champlain Valley and the St Lawrence Valley and they would extract the honey and bottle it raw and unfiltered. It was the most powerful food, full of the bees' adventures and vitality. His operation was based right next to where Red Wagon Plants is currently located. When I needed a little something extra to do that winter 15 years ago, a friend suggested I talk to Todd about helping him with extracting honey. I fell in love with honey and made a life long friend. As Todd would say, it was a fruit example of cross-pollination as our conversations were instantly filled with all of the possibilities of plants, honey, bees, and all of the various ways these things can interplay. Todd's creativity, energy and brilliance have no bounds. He went on to make incredible plant and honey based medicines as part of his business, which was part apiary and part apothecary. While he has moved on to the world of finely distilled spirits, one thing has not changed: Todd is always making products that vibrate with the powerful energy of bees, plants and people. There is an inspired quality in all he makes that can be tasted and felt, and that sets it apart from all the others.
Please let us know you are coming so that we can plan accordingly. RSVP.
Please join us for a special evening and help kick off the 2014 garden season with a wonderful celebration.
- Julie and the crew
