We promised a peek at the new beverages for this year’s Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival, fruit-based sips like Key Lime sparkling wine from Florida Orange Groves at Florida Fresh Outdoor Kitchen and Ace Pineapple Hard Cider and sparkling pineapple wine at Pineapple Promenade.
Among new craft cocktails, we can’t wait to taste: La Tizana cocktail at Botanas Botánico and the Urban Mary at Urban Farm Eats.
“La Tizana is a Venezuelan-influenced fruit punch made with orange juice, lime juice, banana puree, grenadine and garnished with a tropical fruit medley of diced pineapple, mango, strawberries and oranges,” explains Marianne Hunnel, content development manager and beverage expert extraordinaire. For an adult version, you can add a splash of RHUM Orange liqueur from Santa Teresa, Venezuela.
“The Urban Mary is a tomato beverage made with spicy tomato juice, lime juice and Worcestershire sauce, garnished with a pickled green bean and micro greens,” Hunnel continues. Adding a shot of vodka is an option.
Craft beer is back in a big way, with new additions like Maple Bacon Stout, being brewed right now at Shipyard Brewing Company in Clearwater, Fla., to be released on opening day of the festival. Try it in a flight at The Smokehouse: Barbecue and Brews.
And one of the most whimsical takes on grown-up tastes is the new “Ice Pop” at Fleur De Lys in France, flavored with peach iced tea mixed with Grand Marnier Peach Raspberry (a limited-release spirit) and a splash of vodka. “It’s frozen, but not solid, so it just melts in your mouth – refreshing!” says Eric Weistroffer, general manager of Chefs de France.
New this year are free cooking demonstrations at 3 p.m. every Friday, Saturday and Sunday through May 17 at Port of Entry at the entrance to World Showcase. If you’re there for the weekend, plan a short stop. The demos are just about 15 minutes, and it’s your chance to meet a Disney chef and watch how to prepare a delicious dish. Just some festival items to be featured at the demos will be the Piggylicious Bacon Cupcake, the ghost pepper-dusted tilapia, and white corn arepas. You can also pick up a copy of the Taste of Epcot festival cookbook with plenty of recipes to try at home.
For more information, call 407/W-DISNEY (934-7639) or go to epcotinspring.com. Admission to the festival, running March 4-May 17, includes all gardening programs and exhibits.
Comments
Will there be any special tours or events like last year? We did a tour called the Gardens of the World and would love to do it again.
Hi Pam, I am very excited to come to WDW with my college age daughter majoring in hospitality management. It’ll be her/our first time to attend both Epcot and the Flower and Garden Festival! Can’t wait to enjoy the drinks you describe!
Hi Pam,
We also are disappointed that the menus have not come out yet. I agree with the other poster that this is part of the fun. Maybe Disney thinks people do not enjoy the food booths at F&G. If so, they are mistaken. We plan our whole trip around the food booths.
Pam, I have a question about the Passport for the Festival for this year. My Mom and I always enjoy going around to all the garden and food locations and getting all the stamps from each location in the passport. My question is: with the Festival Center only being open on the weekends, will there be another location in Epcot where I can get the Completer Stamp for the Passport during the week when the Festival Center is not open? We always enjoy the satisfaction of getting the Completer Stamp once we have finished the entire passport, and I don’t want to not be able to get it just because we aren’t there on a weekend when the Festival Center is open. Thanks.
All of the F&G merchandise shops located in the World Showcase will have a completer stamp for guests.
Pam, why have the menus for this event not yet been released? My large group of friends and I enjoy Flower and Garden even more than we enjoy Food and Wine, and we plan our trip months in advance and we always return multiple times. Half of the fun of our trips is looking through the menus and getting excited about all of the items we want to try.
The event starts in less than two weeks and we check the website every single day, and we are so disappointed that nothing has been posted yet. 🙁
We are working with the team to get the menu items posted in the web. They should be listed very soon.
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