"WASSAIL!" Hundreds of revelers roar at once, thrusting homemade torches into the freezing air and banging pans together with cacophonous glee. It's stadium-loud, a din to wake the dead.

January in New York's Hudson Valley is typically a quiet time. Summer's giddy rollicking is a distant memory. The fall foliage that sets the hills ablaze come October has long scattered, rustling leaves underfoot giving way to the hush of snow. With the holidays in the rearview mirror, most who call the region home gratefully give in to the slowness of the season. Everything in the valley becomes muted; hibernation is the order of the day.

But on one particular afternoon each year, folks break from their slow puttering to gather in the orchards of 200-year-old Rose Hill Farm with a very specific mission: to make a lot of noise.

Since 2022, cider sommelier Dan Pucci and Madeleine Osborn have hosted their idiosyncratic take on an English wassail celebration, the ancient tradition of visiting apple orchards in the wintertime to fête the trees and promote a prosperous harvest in the year to come. The singing, chanting, and DIY percussion serves to not only symbolically rouse the trees from their slumber but to scare off bugs, blight, and whatever bad spirits might endanger them. But more than anything, it's an opportunity for the community to come together and feel a sense of connection with the land and its bounty. "It's a way to get people out of their little holes this time of year," Pucci jokes.