I’ve lived in Connecticut for about twenty years now, and my wife and two youngest daughters were both born here, so it is a surprise that none of us have ever been to Lyman Orchard’s annual Winterfest. Yesterday, we corrected this error and had a great time.

One of the main draws for us was seeing Bill Covitz’s ice sculptures.

Fiona at the Ice Castle, originally uploaded by Aldon.

Of course Fiona was especially interested in sampling some of the food that was for sale in the store. They had lots of great samples, and I want to highlight some of the best. One of our favorites was the Mango Spice Salsa from Giff’s Original in Cheshire. It was very tasty and they use as much local products as possible in their relishes, chutneys and salsas.

There were quite a few other really good salsas and sauces available as well. Besides buying some of the Mango Spice Salsa, we picked up some Sachs Brand Barbecue sauce. Another good sauce that we sampled was All Natural Frank’s Marinara sauce. Frank used to run a restaurant up near Hartford, and now makes his sauces from Hebron, and you can find his sauces in a lot of stores around Connecticut.

Another honorable mention goes to Rich’s Sweet Heat crossing the line from Coventry, RI. Also notable in the sauce and salsa category is Salsa Delievery from East Granby with their Fresh Salsa of the Month club.

In the drinks category there were samples of fresh cider from the orchard, East Haven’s Foxon Park White Birch Beer, and Sweet Leaf Tea which had various ice teas and lemonade available for sample. Sweet Leaf Tea is actually from Austin Texas, but they’re making a big push in the northeast. Rounding out the drinks section was Lebanon, CT based Farmer’s Cow.

Across the aisle from the Farmer’s Cow samples were sample cider donut holes and cherry pie from the orchard and nearby were nuts from The Nut Lady from Agawam, MA.

With our food sampling complete, Fiona insisted that we stop and say hello to the puppies. Guilding Eyes for the Blind had a display up about their puppy raising program as well as several very cute puppies.

Ending off our day, we visited the igloos. These were small, but still large enough for Fiona to climb into. After this we went on a brief sleigh ride. Although the snow was melting around us as the horses pulled our sleigh across the field, it was a great experience.

As we left, Fiona asked if we can come back every year. I tend to take things a little more ‘one day at a time’, but agreed that we would put it on our list of things to try and come back to in 2011.

As a final note, in light of recent FTC rulings about bloggers endorsing things, I should let people know that the only things we have received for this favorable review was the good times and good samples we had at the Winter Festival, as well as a free cherry pie that we have been offered for putting some pictures of the event up on the Lyman Orchard’s Facebook Fan page. Fiona and I are really looking forward to Kim picking up the cherry pie.

For more pictures of the event, check out the pictures tagged ‘winterfest38’ on Flickr.