What Happened to Blanco's Marigold Festival? It Became a Showcase for Blanco's Distillers

The old festival website still has its welcome text up, and it reads:

"This hometown festival will get you in the spirit of the season! Movies, music, vendors market, and lots of fun things for the kids to do."

The new festival site's welcome is close to word for word, with one sentence swapped:

"This hometown festival will get you in the spirit of the season! Whiskey tastings and cocktails from Blanco's award-winning distillers, the best Craft Beer in the State and impressive Hill Country wines."

Those two paragraphs open the same way and end with the same line about "so, so many amazing marigolds." The middle is what changed. The movies and kids' activities that used to open the festival's pitch now come after whiskey, and the event is called Spirits of Blanco. The Texas Marigold Festival homepage now has a banner that says so directly: "texas marigold festival is now spirits of blanco."

This is the second Halloween weekend under the new name. The 2026 lineup shows how much the festival has been reorganized around the drinks made in and around town.

Four Years Built Around a Flower

KSAT reported in October 2021 that Blanco was starting a Texas Marigold Festival. Organizers planned several days of events beginning October 23 on the Old Blanco County Courthouse Square, with marigolds at the center of a Día de los Muertos theme. That first year, the blooms came from Arnosky Family Farm, according to a festival notice reprinted by The Texas Wildflower.

Through its run, the festival's material describes a market on the Old Courthouse lawn with local and regional artists, kids' craft stations, marigold crafts, and a Día de los Muertos ofrenda. In 2023, the schedule included a "COCO" movie night and a dance where costumes for Halloween or Día de los Muertos were welcome. The 2024 calendar added an ofrenda workshop, tours of the marigold fields, a book signing, and music and dance events.

The Blanco Chamber of Commerce calendar called the October 2023 edition the 3rd Annual Texas Marigold Festival and the 2024 edition the 4th Annual, listed from October 18 through October 27. That was the last edition held under the marigold name.

Winery and brewery vendors were part of the market in those years too. Drinks are not new to this festival. The change is where they sit in the program.

The 2025 Rename Put Whiskey at the Top of the Bill

The Chamber's listing for the 2025 Spirits of Blanco Festival ran Friday, October 31 through Sunday, November 2, 2025. It describes the weekend in this order: "Whiskey tastings, activities for kids, your favorite regional vendors and live music. Enjoy a craft cocktail in the Spirits Lounge." The marigold-era features are still there. They are just listed after the tastings and the lounge.

The current festival is presented by the Blanco Chamber of Commerce. None of the festival pages, Chamber listings, or news coverage we reviewed gives a reason for the rename. The pages only show the change.

They also show what stayed. The new About page still opens with "the beautiful flower that is at the center of the season's celebrations," and the distillers page leads with a photo of a marigold field. The flowers are now the backdrop for the drinks.

The 2026 Weekend Is Scheduled Around Tasting Hours

The 2026 festival runs Friday, October 30 through Sunday, November 1 at the Old Blanco County Courthouse, 300 Main Street. That puts Saturday's full day on Halloween. The distillers page posts its own tasting windows "so that you can plan ahead," and those windows are shorter than the festival's hours.

Read across the rows, the tastings overlap the music differently each day. On Friday, the 4 p.m. start comes an hour before El Verde Boys take the stage, and pours end at 7, half an hour before Rochelle and the Sidewinders begin. Saturday's six-hour tasting window covers Celestial Mirage and the Justin Murray Band, then closes before Rob Staley's evening set. On Sunday, tastings start just as Hill Country Honeys finish.

The Friday listing on Eventbrite is free to reserve. The official pages don't post a general admission policy for the whole weekend or any parking details.

Who's Pouring, and Where It's Made

The festival's distillers page names five producers. Their own descriptions say where the work happens, and the answers differ.

• Andalusia Whiskey says it distills "right here in Blanco, Texas" in a hand-crafted copper pot still, grain to glass.
• Real Spirits makes its whiskey and gin from Real Ale beers: Devil's Backbone Belgian-style Tripel and Real Heavy Scotch Ale for the whiskey, and White, a Belgian-style wheat ale, for the gin. All of it is "brewed, fermented, aged, bottled, and served on-site at the brewery and distillery in Blanco."
• Milam & Greene Whiskey is named for founder Marsha Milam and master blender Heather Greene.
• Garrison Brothers Distillery says every bottle is milled, cooked, distilled, barreled, and aged at its distillery in Hye, Texas, with expressions from 80 to 140 proof.
• Round Mountain Distilling makes XXVIII Premium Texas Rum at its distillery in Round Mountain, Texas, triple distilled and rested in American oak.

The festival's wineries page lists Esperanza Winery, Pebble Rock Cellars, and Portree Cellars. Real Ale's beer is still represented through Real Spirits, which distills its whiskey and gin from it.

Esperanza Winery's event page says the winery will have a booth at the festival on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and that its tasting room at 115 Main Street is one block from the square.

Where the Marigold Festival Still Shows

The lead-up week still starts the way the marigold years did, with a movie. Esperanza Winery's listing says the festival opens Friday, October 23 with a kickoff movie at Bindseil Park at "Dark 30." It doesn't name the film. In 2023 the movie was "Coco." The Chamber calendar adds a Spirits of Blanco Kick-Off Mixer on Thursday, October 29, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., with no venue listed yet. The winery's page says more events are on the way. As of mid-October, nothing has been posted for October 24 through 28.

The market is also still there. The festival's market page says vendors and artisans will set up on the courthouse grounds and that children's activities will be offered. The page was still taking arts-and-crafts and food vendor applications, so there's no final vendor list yet.

The current 2026 pages don't announce an ofrenda, marigold field tours, a costume dance, or a contest. With details still being posted, any of those could be added before October 30.

How the Festival Fits Around the Rest of the Square

Spirits of Blanco takes over the courthouse lawn just two weeks after Blanco's regular Market Day. Market Day runs 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the third Saturday of each month on the Old Blanco County Courthouse square. That puts it on October 17 this month, November 21, and December 19, when it becomes the Christmas Market, according to the Historic Blanco market page. Fall on the square is a run of Saturday markets with the festival weekend in the middle. The August side of that calendar is in our earlier post, August in Blanco Belongs to the Fairgrounds and the Square, Not the River.

The festival weekend also lines up with two dates at Blanco State Park. Bats at Blanco is on Saturday, October 31, the same day as the festival's longest hours. Sunday, November 1 is Texas State Parks Day, when park entry is free. That's also the festival's shortest day, closing at 4 p.m. The park's calendar continues after the festival with Hiking with a Ranger on November 7 and Fishing 101 on November 14.

So the stretch from October 17 to November 1 has a Market Day, a movie night in Bindseil Park, a Thursday mixer, three days of tastings and music on the courthouse lawn, a Halloween bat program at the state park, and a free park day, all within a few blocks of each other or a short drive away. Our Blanco neighborhood guide covers the parts of town around the square year-round.

If you live near downtown Blanco, Halloween weekend shows how much activity the square now supports. If that has you wondering what your own place is worth, Sunrise Realty Group can help. Get your instant home valuation at our home valuation page, and we'll walk you through what the numbers mean for your part of Blanco.