Thanks to Austin Monthly, I got a pair of tickets to the Hill Country Food and Wine Festival Sunday Fair out in Driftwood. And thanks to the great advice of a friend already out there, I chose my clothing wisely. I donned boots and a sweater and Josh and I headed out. I was originally contemplating sandals. I would have had my feet submerged in mud in the first ten steps.

We drove out to Driftwood to the Vineyards at Salt Lick and parked, got our map and found out one of our favorite wineries had a booth! Four Vines Winery out of Paso Robles, California. We’re actually members of their wine club and have visited the winery, so it was great to see them. We headed to their tent first and had a delicious tasting. We wove around that tent, tried some more wines, had some delicious food from Dagar’s Catering. Then we discovered the Spirits Tent. A whole tent dedicated to liquor! We had a couple of tastings there including a very delicious drink from Balcones Distillery and Deep Eddy Sweet Tea Vodka, which is great and does not contain HFCS.

We went around the Whole Foods and Texas Monthly tents tried some more delicious wines, great food and sweets. Big notables — Kellie’s Kandies & Cookies were soo tasty and pretty. Blue Note Bakery had delicious chocolate bourbon squares, and Whole Foods had a delicious cold sliced lamb salad.

To end our experience, we hopped into the food demonstration tent to see Chef David Bull prepare Green Chili Buttered Bandera Quail, and then we each got our own plate! Mmmmm.