Washashore is a term largely reserved for individuals who find their way to the Cape, and proudly claim it as their home, despite not being a native Cape Codder. For Nantucketers who, through currents and a succession of incoming and receding tides, find their way to the Faraway Island as it has become known, the circumstances that lead to dropping anchor are often as unique as the island itself. For Wendy Hudson, a local business entrepreneur, that adage could not be more true.
“My grandparents had a home on Wing’s Neck in Pocasset—where my mother now lives—and we would make our summer pilgrimages from Cleveland, Ohio to the Cape—we had the station wagon loaded up and would be pulling a Widgeon—and it was always the stuff of idyllic memories. My grandparents were sailors, and every few years we’d sail to Nantucket and I loved it.” she explains. During a semester at Mystic Seaport while at Smith College, other adventurous students regaled her with tales of their summers spent working on Nantucket. “I thought, is that really a thing? So, I followed them and got a job at Bartlett’s Farm because they had housing back in the summer of 1988,” she recalls.
After graduating, Hudson found her way to Palo Alto with some of her friends. “It was the very beginning of the micro-brew craze. I always say I should have gone to work for Oracle as like Employee Number Two, or started a computer company in my garage, but instead we were making beer,” she quips.
Yet Nantucket still tugged at her heart and when she returned, she met the love of her life, her husband Randy. “He was then, and still is, a completely untethered spirit. He was living on a live-aboard—a boat on a mooring in the harbor with no engine—and he was baking bread at a local bakery. So, I stayed after the summer and for our first Christmas I gave him a home brew kit, and since he is such an intuitive cook—following his instinct instead of a recipe—he really took it to another level,” Hudson muses. A loft space over Nantucket Vineyard, allowed the couple to share their unique concoctions with the public. The winery owners Dean and Melissa Long, and the Hudsons instead decided to embark on a partnership that is now the world renowned Cisco Brewers/Triple Eight Distillery/Nantucket Vineyard. “In 1996 we actually brought on a fifth partner,” Hudson explains. “Jay Harman had come to the island to write a paper on our business as an undergraduate, and it was evident he was a natural sales guy, so we didn’t let him leave.”
Today, Cisco has evolved and expanded to several locations off the island, and Randy has continued to innovate and surprise lovers of adult beverages with his distilling prowess as he is now head blender for Triple Eight Distillery. Wendy who is still on the board of Cisco, indulges one of her other passions in another unrelated entrepreneurial venture. “We got our license to brew in 1995, and so in the off-season as we were getting the brewery started, I took a job at Nantucket Bookworks so we would have something to support us. In reality, I was in heaven. I mean, what is better than a Nantucket winter and snuggling in to read books?” she confesses. A later purchase of the store and an acquisition of Mitchell’s Book Corner in 2012 has Hudson now cornering the literary market on Nantucket. Her unwavering support of local authors, and the island community as a whole, has positioned Hudson as a caring and impactful business leader, as evidenced by her co-founding the Nantucket Book Foundation, as well as her many civic roles. She invites one and all to find her on the island for a beer and a book.
This profile was written by Julie Craven Wagner for the Notable Neighbors section of Cape Cod Life and is reprinted here with permission from Cape Cod Life Publications.