Fernie, the concessionaire who brought funnel cakes to the State Fair of Texas, probably never would have guessed that her deep-fried family business would sell shots of funnel-cake-flavored alcohol. But it would have made her laugh, say Christi Erpillo and Johnna McKee, the sisters who put their mother’s name on the bottle.
Wanda “Fernie” Winter, the State Fair’s “funnel cake queen,” died in 2021 at age 95. Still, she is very much a part of the five State Fair booths her daughters open each year in Fair Park. Fernie has a royal purple chair that sits empty in her honor at The Dock, an air-conditioned concessions area on the fairgrounds. And McKee regularly replays voicemails with Mother’s voice offering words of encouragement during 24 sweaty days.
“She’d say, ‘Y’all did good,’” McKee says. It’s an anthem she’ll play on repeat, just to hear her voice.
The sisters are launching Fernie’s Funnel Cake Cream just in time for the 2023 State Fair of Texas. It’ll be sold in Central Market starting in mid-September 2023 in North Texas. Eventually, Fernie’s Funnel Cake Cream will be sold by the bottle in Goody Goody Liquor, Spec’s and H-E-B. And, the sisters will sell it at all five of their booths at the State Fair. Customers can order it by the shot or mixed in a frozen piña colada. The family also plans to sell it inside a cookie-shaped shot glass with an edible Fernie’s logo on the front.
The drink is creamy, with vanilla flavoring and a hint of glazed doughnuts — or perhaps it’s the essence of funnel cake. Funnel Cake Cream tastes like cereal milk — you know, the sugary dregs at the bottom of the bowl. But the wine-based cream also has a boozy bite.
Mix it with Dr Pepper for a seriously Texan treat. Stir it up with peanut butter whiskey. Or Fireball. Or just bourbon. Erpillo smiles, then sighs: This is her baby, and she’s tried it every which way.
Mother’s name
Fernie didn’t drink much. She and her late husband John Winter were nationally-famous square dancers and round dancers who traveled all over the United States teaching other couples.
They got involved at the State Fair of Texas in 1969 when they took a job at the fair to make extra money outside of John’s full-time job with the Santa Fe Railway. In 1980, when they visited Branson, Mo., to dance, they ate their first funnel cake and had an “aha” moment: The State Fair of Texas needs this fried treat, the Winters thought.
Funnel cakes arrived at the State Fair of Texas that same year, in 1980, and cost $1.50 at the Winter family’s booth. Funnel cakes are still one of the family’s top sellers more than 40 years later.
Erpillo had been working on getting the drink formulated since 2022. She’s the creative one. Impatient too, she admits. McKee is the family’s finance mind, and she also works full-time as a financial controller at a construction company.
Over the summer, the two sisters traveled to Dripping Springs, Texas, to watch the first bottles of Fernie’s Funnel Cake Cream come down the conveyor belt, filled with their boozy family recipe, then labeled and sealed.
Christi grabbed that first bottle and carried it around all day.
“When we turned the corner and saw these bottles with Momma’s name on them—” McKee stops herself. Her eyes well up with tears.
“Probably the only time I have felt that much joy might have been at the birth of my children.”
Funnel cake: the new king cake?
Erpillo started working at the fair more than 50 years ago, and she’s proud to come from a “carnie” family. Erpillo got the idea to make a family-inspired spirit after she tried king cake liqueur.
“If king cake can be a drink, why can’t we do funnel cakes?” she asked. She secretly vowed to make hers better.
She had an advantage that many don’t: Her husband Bert Erpillo is the founder of a Dallas-based wholesale liquor company. From the beginning, Christi planned to make her Funnel Cake Cream wine-based. The State Fair of Texas doesn’t allow hard-liquor beverages. And, she wanted her drink to be sold at convenience stores and grocery stores, not just liquor stores.
Her sister is the finance whiz, but Christi is smart, too.
“There are 42 million people who go to fairs across the country,” she says. She wants them all to try Fernie’s Funnel Cake Cream, and eventually, the sisters will sell it, wholesale, to other fair concessionaires.
“I want this to be everywhere,” she says.
Fernie’s Funnel Cake Cream goes on sale in retail stores in Dallas-Fort Worth the week of Sept. 11, 2023. The wine-based drink will also be sold in cocktails and as shots at the State Fair of Texas, which runs Sept. 29 through Oct. 22, 2023 in Dallas’ Fair Park.
