Desert Door — This Babe Eats

Scrolling through Instagram a few months ago I saw someone I follow had gone to this place called Desert Door and it looked pretttyyy cool. After some quick investigation I found that it was located down in Driftwood, TX (about 30 mins from Austin) and was actually a Sotol Distillery. I had no idea what Sotol was and had never tried it before but thought it would be a good day trip to do when I had a guest in town!

When we arrived at the distillery the bartender dropped allll the knowledge about Sotol on us. The drink has a long history in Texas (like 800 years long) and is harvested from…you guessed it, the Sotol plant. A lot of people think that Sotol is an Agave but it is actually classified in a different family. It’s not a tequila, vodka, or mezcal but you can taste the resemblance to each of them - it’s very unique and goes great in a cocktail.

There are a ton of other fun facts about Desert Door (like they are currently the only Sotol distillery in the US) and they offer tours on Friday, Saturday, & Sunday at 12pm & 1pm that I highly recommend you check out if you are interested in learning more!

The distillery itself is beautifully designed and a great place for photos! The cocktails are hand crafted and really, really good. We tried four different cocktails, I’ll give you the run down on each below! Their drinks do change seasonally, so don’t expect to see all of these on the menu when you go.

Desert Paloma

with Desert Door Original Sotol, fresh lime juice, grapefruit juice, agave nectar, and grapefruit shrub

Lechuza

with Desert Door Original Sotol, honey, yaupon tea, cinnamon, cardamon, cloves, peppercorns, horchata, and ginger syrup

Comanchero

with Desert Door Original Sotol, jalapeños, cilantro, sotol nectar, fresh lime juice, and agave nectar

Bartender’s Choice

this changes often and I don’t remember all the ingredients but it had persimmon in it and was delicious!

After finishing our drinks we grabbed a few bottles of Desert Door to take home (they are gorgeous and look great on a bar cart) and then headed to Jester King Brewery for the rest of the day!