For the past two years, my husband and I have had the privilege of spending a day enjoying great tastes and good times at the Southern Vermont Garlic & Herb Festival. This event has been held in our (still relatively new) hometown of Bennington, Vermont every Labor Day weekend for the past 24 years. We’ve gone for single days, but truer garlic enthusiasts than us would likely appreciate the fact that it’s held on Saturday and Sunday, so you can soak up the experience all weekend long (and if you have Labor Day off, you can relax and spend the day nursing your stomach after all the indulgence). Adult admission is currently $10.00, which is slightly concerning considering that it was $8.00 only a year ago. However, it is a great time and the staggering amount of tasty morsels one can sample easily makes the experience worth the price.
Tired of walking the grounds? Train rides are available. 
The tents and the crowd. 
Tacos!
The second time we visited – this past 2019 Labor Day weekend – we invited a couple of our friends and their one year-old baby. I’m noting this because, even though you might not think it, Garlic Fest is very child-friendly with $2 admission for children (12 and under) and plenty of activities kids love, such as a little train ride around the grounds, magic shows, and bounce houses. It is truly fun for all ages, even if, in our case, the baby’s legit greatest entertainment of the day was getting to push the button on the side of my FitBit.
Parking is helpfully free, but my husband I like to walk whenever possible – that’s one aspect of my New York City self I’m more than happy to maintain. From the walking entrance, we started both years by heading into the “food court” area of the festival. Here we’ve gotten some yummy lunches from various food trucks and tents, though all items cost money in this area. This year I enjoyed two beef tacos for $8, which were delicious if extremely messy. My husband felt he needed to get something with garlic to go with the event’s theme, so he got to experience some garlic chicken bites, which I also tasted and approved. You might think the whole festival counts as a “food court”, but there are other distinct areas, which also include the beer tent, Growers Row, a stage for music/entertainment, the main tents/stalls, and, of course, a restroom area which happens to be rather interesting. The port-a-potty bathroom area is most unique due to the fact that there is an open-air urinal and “pee-only” porta-potties which are set up for local farms to collect urine to use as fertilizer – I was not kidding when I mentioned that Vermont really cares about sustainability and the planet! This year I even received an “I donated” sticker after exiting a #1-only porta-potty, which was a most memorable experience indeed.
Saving the earth, with #1… 
Garlic samples were ubiquitous, as one would hope! 
Just one of many delicious tables full of free samples. 
Not all garlic is the same – there were many varieties to try.
Across the path from the food court, music, and porta potties one can find the area where the main attractions of Garlic Fest set up camp: various vendors from southern Vermont and upstate NY are available from 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM to share samples of their goods and sell products. The variety of food, alcohol, crafts, and general merchandise available is extremely impressive, as is the amount of free samples available for tasting. This year, I had the privilege of sampling, meat, garlic, hot sauce, garlic vodka, cinnamon almonds, kimchi, pickles, mustard, fudge, rum, wine, peach liqueur, and more. You might notice a lot of alcohol in that sample list – the organizers of the event are aware of this and provide a taxi number for driving safety. There are also supposed to be wristbands for those over 21 but they ran out by the time we arrived and no one asked me for an ID, which was a bit of a bummer, vanity-wise.
Out of all of the samples I was pleased to experience, I did walk away with some favorites. I enjoyed the sweet yet slightly savory taste of the garlic fudge from The Apple Barn, delighted in the fruity samples available from The Wine Slushie Guy, was highly impressed by the nectar known as peach cordial available from the Wild Hart Distillery, and, of course, I could have stayed at the B’s Cheese stall (tragically, no website) inhaling delicious cheese spreads all day if there wasn’t so much else to try. I also made a couple of purchases that were all delectable: the moose-tracks flavored ice cream from Bart’s Ice Cream was chocolate-y perfection and the indulgent lemonade rum cocktail was great, though I can’t recall which vendor sold this excellent concoction. I picked up a few goat milk soaps from Garland Goat Soap, as well – I am a sucker for superbly-scented soaps!
Tasty Moose Tracks! 
Yummy rum lemonade cocktails. 
Hot sauce samples for all.
Aside from the $2.00 jump in admission pricing, there is one other issue I find to be a problem with this lovely event. Considering that there are large crowds and samples are everywhere, germs are rampant. Guests are often drinking and may forget to be careful with their toothpicks. Each stall has this set up differently, but some are more serious about fighting the potential germ issue than others. Some stalls have toothpicks in shakers, some have them lying on plates, and some, such as stalls featuring honey, have small spoons available. It can get a bit chaotic and I think the festival would be improved if there were some guidelines on how vendors can successfully provide samples without risking the passage of illness. I am saying this as someone who developed a sore throat shortly after the event. The alcohol-related and other beverage stalls don’t have a problem here, as they pour out samples into tiny shot glasses and hand them out individually. I do believe this is an issue that can be corrected with effort and it’s not enough to diminish my strong appreciation for how special this festival is.
Each experience at Garlic Fest has been a positive one for me. As an elementary school educator in a town where school starts the week before Labor Day day, this event provides something to look forward to during the beginning of the school year, which can be an extremely busy and challenging time. There’s enough to see and do at Garlic Fest to keep anyone busy from throughout its hours, and perhaps even throughout the whole two days it shows up each year. This past year, I was thrilled to be able to share this extremely Vermont-y experience with some fellow New England friends and I hope to share it with more friends and family in the future.
Freshly Vermont rating: five out of five stars. ★★★★★