Dripping with drinks

6 intoxicating breweries and distilleries to spirit away to in nearby Dripping Springs

Dripping Springs bills itself as the Wedding Capital of Texas, complete with a trademark on the phrase. The growing community near Austin also brags about its official International Dark Sky designation, a draw for stargazers. While there may be no official recognition for an abundance of wineries, distilleries, and breweries — trust us — this area has boozy bona fides.

As summer fades into fall (yes, please!), here are three distilleries and three breweries in Dripping Springs offering plenty of reasons to stop by.

Booze

Desert Door Distillery
Sotol is tequila’s smoother cousin. This distillery makes it from sotol plants wild-harvested in West Texas and uses it to make ranch water, margaritas, and bespoke cocktails. A covered outdoor seating area with misting fans is kid- and dog-friendly. Enjoy live music, limited editions of sotol, and farm-to-table inspired dishes from the Eden West food truck, open Thursday 4-8 pm, Friday and Saturday noon-8 pm, and Sunday noon-6 pm. Distillery hours are Thursday 3:30-8 pm, Friday and Saturday 11:30 am-8 pm, and Sunday noon-6. 211 Darden Hill Rd., 512-829-6129.

Dripping Springs Distilling
In 2005, the Kelleher brothers built the first distillery in the Texas Hill Country and in 2007, sold their first bottle of Dripping Springs Vodka. The venture became Dripping Springs Distilling in 2018, offering vodka, gin, bourbon, tequila, and other spirits. A new location with a bar; visitors center; event venue; and spacious, oak-studded grounds, complete with a kids’ play area and water bowls for the pups, opened in August. After a pandemic-related hiatus, distillery tours and tastings are back by reservation or walk-up ($21.65 per person). Venue operations manager Kristi Quick reports plans for Sunday tours with Austin Tour Company, featuring this and two other area stops. The distillery plans to roll out fall cocktails in October, with seasonal touches such as warming spices and hot drinks. Also in the works: Sunday brunch. The distillery is open Thursday through Sunday 10:30 am-5 pm. 5330 Bell Springs Rd., 512-858-1199.

Treaty Oak Distilling
On 28 shady acres, tour the production facility, dine at Alice’s Restaurant, sip cocktails, or sample spirits in the Rickhouse Bar or tasting room, or grab a picnic table under the oaks. Bring the dog and the kids (there’s a play area for the little ones). A $25, 45-minute guided tour and tasting includes $5 off any bottle, up to two bottles. Tours run Saturday noon-5 pm every hour. Live music happens on Friday and Saturday. Nab one of 10 spots in the Single Barrel Select program that includes behind-the-scenes tasting and barrel samples, a personalized bottle of cask-strength Ghost Hill Texas Bourbon, a barbecue plate, and a 40 percent discount on food, beverages, and merchandise all day. The entire facility is open Friday and Saturday noon-9 pm, and Sunday noon-6 pm. 16604 Fitzhugh Rd., 512-400-4023.

Beer

Beerburg Brewing
Hops don’t grow well in Texas, but Beerburg sources all its other brewing ingredients from the state, with a Wildcraft Series featuring Texas-foraged plants. Seasonal offerings for fall include a mesquite bean and pecan brown ale. Taqueria la Violeta offers a variety of regional Mexican street food, including tacos and house-made ice creams. Enjoy it all on a large deck and tree-shaded beer garden. Live music jams every Friday and Sunday, and local artwork is on view in the lounge. Beerburg is open Thursday and Friday 3-8 pm, and Saturday and Sunday noon-8 pm. 13476 Fitzhugh Rd., 512-265-0543.

Fitzhugh Brewing
Here, the possibilities abound. Choose to spend your day in an expansive indoor space, on the covered patio, or in the large outdoor beer garden with shaded picnic tables, a playscape, and a stage. Co-owner Kerbey Smith and brewer Nathan Rice make beers for everyone, not just aficionados. Rice brews styles from Barbados to Belgium, all piped straight to the bar taps. (It doesn’t get fresher than that!) Food by PEJ Kitchens (the sister company of longtime Austin smokehouse Pok-e-Jo’s) features tender riffs on barbecue, from smokehouse nachos to burnt ends, pork ribs, and sausage — and one of Austin’s most inventive charcuterie boards. Events range from those featuring baby goats to kids’ nights, four-course dinner and beer pairings, and a one-year anniversary party planned for October 16 that will include music, raffles, and bottle releases. Fitzhugh is open Thursday and Friday 4-8 pm, Saturday 11 am-9 pm, and Sunday noon-7 pm. 15435 Fitzhugh Rd., 512-648-0653.

Jester King
The picnic tables in the pole barn, beer garden, pasture, canopy, goat barn, and grotto are first-come, first-served here, but there are a lot of them and most offer glorious shade. In addition to a rotating cast of unique beers, including one brewed with 100 percent Texas ingredients (very impressive since Texas-grown hops are a challenge), Jester King makes wine and cider using its own groundwater and Texas grapes and fruit for wine and Texas apples for cider. Food options include fresh-made pizzas, barbecue, and sides. Walk the mile-plus nature trail and the grounds on your own, or reserve a Goat Experience or Goat Walk with the herd of Nigerian Dwarf goats ($10 per person) or a tour ($5 per person). Jester King is open Wednesday and Thursday 3-9 pm, Friday 3-10 pm, Saturday noon-10 pm, and Sunday noon-9 pm. Reservations are encouraged. 13187 Fitzhugh Rd., 512-661-8736.

Find even more Dripping Springs options here.

Indulge in the charm — and tasty brew and barbecue offerings — at Fitzhugh Brewing.

Fitzhugh Brewing/Facebook

Indulge in the charm — and tasty brew and barbecue offerings — at Fitzhugh Brewing.

tours craft-beer cocktails breweries

Airline News

American Airlines to take things up a notch at DFW Airport

Photo courtesy of American Airlines

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Fort Worth-based American Airlines is making changes at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), its largest hub and hometown airport, including departure times spread throughout the day.

DFW has an outsized impact on the rest of the airline’s operation and on the journeys of the nearly 700,000 customers the airline serves every day across its global network. More customers and more bags travel and connect through DFW every day than any other airport in American's network. What's good for DFW is good for everyone.

More banks
For more than a decade, American’s schedule at DFW has been concentrated across nine banks, or large clusters of flights across the operating day. As all airline bank structures do, this times large groups of flights together, coordinating arrivals and departures, and ultimately, coordinating quick and seamless connections.

Beginning in April — and visible in the airline’s schedules starting December 27 — American’s DFW operation is evolving to a 13-bank structure, providing more certainty to the airline’s average 100,000 peak daily customers traveling on the more than 930 average peak DFW daily departing flights.

With this structural schedule change, customers will find more departure options in highly desired time windows and fewer early morning departures to DFW.

American is also making an investment in block time for flights to and from DFW. (Block time is the total scheduled time between pushback from the departure gate to arrival at the destination gate.) The goal is more on-time departures, which lead to more on-time arrivals and fewer delays.

Connections
They're also working on improving connection times, making it easier to connect through DFW. The new structure should reduce the concentration of very short connection times.

Customers on the go such as business travelers can still book tight connections when time matters — but the schedule enhancements will now provide more options for a stress-free experience with more time between flights. Reflowing their schedule means fewer air traffic delays and more on-time departures and arrivals.

By spreading out its DFW flight schedule across the day, the airline is also spreading out customer volume, including everything from local customers arriving in parking garages, checking in at lobbies, and clearing security, to connecting customers making their way through American’s terminals to their next flights.

Terminals
Other improvements include modernizing American’s facilities and airport terminals, including Terminal A and C Pier extensions adding nine incremental gates.

They're also adding Terminal F to be completed in 2030, with 31 new gates that can accommodate increased widebody capacity, state-of-the-art baggage technology, dedicated premium lounges, Flagship check-in, and a new U.S. Customs facility.

New programs in partnership with the Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection include TSA PreCheck Touchless ID — allowing customers at DFW (and 16 other locations across American’s U.S. network) to use facial recognition technology for more secure and efficient identity verification.

airport