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Warm up with a toddie or even cool off with a cold one? There is a drink for everyone and every temperature in Sippin’ With The Hotties, in the hot and hopping town this weekend, that also is aglow with three scheduled balloon launches and other such activities, as the 35th annual Hudson Hot Air Affair with its theme Rockin’ With The Coldies strums it up all this weekend, Feb. 2-4. —– For numerous New and improved Notations on this, The Affair that’s Hot, see updates in the Notes From The Beat department alongside this post. Several have been posted currently.)

You know a chilly but smokin’ and scarfed penguin in this, the land and ice and snow and Coldies, will mean fun that just keeps on ballooning!
That’s the theme mascot, of sorts, for the 2024 Hudson Hot Air Affair, and the multitude of music and tasting has been described in my previous posts but there is even more frivolity that will not fizzle in this, its 35th year of bringing the heat to the air. Newer much warmer weather, and mild wind in western Wisconsin, will likely mean hot air balloons indeed go up. There are burner-borne launches — following up on a space day of moon and Mars at the Hudson Public Library — slated for Saturday and Sunday morning at 7:35 a.m. and Saturday at 3 p.m. Add to that a 7 p.m. torchlight parade on Friday, and a moonglow/field of fire at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday. Winds are forecast to be below the 10 mph threshold for launch, especially Sunday. Just don’t quite know about smoosh-boarding. (The named activities all are at the school grounds at EP Rock Elementary on the hill, except for the downtown parade.)
This music-heavy Affair even features a piano-theme balloon among its dozens, be it plinky or pounding like Tim Grady on the Grand, every early evening this weekend at Ziggy’s Live Music Bar and Restaurant. Other music rocks the whole town also. Penguin mascots love to mingle and dance — and even sample drinks that forget those fishy gars, are far beyond sea water — just not with killer whales, as that scares the wool-scarfed, feathered and flippered ones.
In a newer related event, also in the chilly water, the Hudson Rotary Club goes beyond its killer annual car raffle and jumps in the lake early-afternoon with a St. Croix River Dunk of polar style, at the Lakefront Park beach on Saturday from 1-3 p.m.

— Did I call this polar pizzazz chilly? As the time of this writing update, just before 10 a.m. after a night of checking out the sights and sounds of The Affair, it was hovering around freezing and expected to get several degrees warmer around the slosh-around-in-the-lakefront-or-is-it-a-river time. So they might get even more than their originally expected 200 water jumpers, per my pals at the Hudson Star-Observer, and thus make more than the $100K goal for charity! Great news for all but polar bears. So this event doesn’t have to be a bear for those who are timid, hey even up here in the Great Northwoods And Waters some of us have our limits, (as in Boundaries in our Waters), as per this the sixth annual, actually, event that streams. And in the HSO submitted photo, showing that being-in-costume lives beyond the Friday night torchlight parade, there was a man who looked like a combo of a bear and rocker Jack Black, as this is a HHAA music weekend, and a very much taller likeness of Will Ferrell. And such guys do indeed dress up, be that good or bad, or in-between.
(For occasional updates on the Hudson Hot Air Affair happenings, “shortly” after they occur or are ongoing, see this website’s Notes From The Beat department, listed alongside.) —

To wit, to steel yourself, at the sponsoring dance venues and various others: There will be the Sippin’ With The Hotties Beverage Crawl, with special prices on unique alcoholic and non-alcoholic creations, and you can start but not end with launch-timed bloodies.
All through the three-day event weekend, there’s this connected offering — giving a chance to sip without slippin’ on any newly formed ice — starting with the downtown and then broadening out across the greater Hudson area. Here are the participants: (Vote for your favorite for a chance to win a $50 Gift Certificate.) Visit these participating Hudson restaurants and bars all weekend long: Bennett’s Chop & Railhouse, Big Guys BBQ Roadhouse, Black Rooster Bistro, Buddy’s Bakery, Dick’s Bar & Grill, Grand Fête, Keys Café Bakery & Bar, Lucky Guys Distillery, Post American Eatery, Smokey Treats BBQ, The Cellars Wines & Spirits/Tonka Vodka and Ziggy’s Live Music, Bar & Restaurant.
To lead off the many examples, you may be beholden to the Hotchata drink with rum at Bennett’s, adding peppermint bark (or is it dark), with the first letter partly obscured by a mug handle, as shown on the sign on the wall — actually front window — that says it all. Such overt promotion will get you places not earlier seen with HudsonWiNightlife. There are three other deliciously “creamy” new signs in the area, that “milk” the theme of are you looking for a sign to do or buy something like such a specialty drink, and then the message in front of you that you see, suggested along the sidewalk, is just that sign. “You don’t need no astrology … or ticket to fly with me …” Listen to Ozzy expound, as he knows, having crossed through Hudson many times while touring with OzzFest.
Anyway, over at Ziggy’s, there is a special hawked on the bottom corner of their monthly lineup, on a marquee of bands that may or may not have to do with this not type of Affair, although that event is prompted by a similar and related sign in the upper corner of the same bulletin board. Thus pumped is the Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze IPA. Given the music theme, at this club and the ballooning extravaganza as a whole, reigning with Purple Haze would also fit, and Sinatra and Godsmack and Jimi again, and Night Ranger also weighs in.
Since just before the new year turned, bartender Joe’s White Russian has been a resolution, and you can buy it with Cutwater Vodka, bringing it up to 13 percent alcohol by volume, and a coffee cream liquor. (Disclaimer: There is no official word on whether the last two drinks have been creations that go specifically along with the Hot Air Affair offering, but they show examples of what you can find and weigh in on. Check out much more, such as mulled wine decked out in a thin bottle with flower at Urban Olive and Vine, and play on with pizzazz as this weekend plays out.)

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