State Fair of Texas, 2026 Big Tex Choice Awards Sipper Finalist
Caramel apple and bacon aren’t natural roommates. One belongs at a candy stand, the other at breakfast.
Isaac Rousso has made a career of moving bacon into rooms it wasn’t invited to.
What This Thing Actually Is
Straight from Deep Ellum, this hard cider gets crafted with hints of apple, caramel, and cinnamon sugar, then finished with a smoky bacon jam twist.
A dessert flavor and a breakfast meat, dissolved into the same glass of hard cider.
Rousso’s Concessions built it.
The Part That’s Actually Funny
This isn’t Isaac Rousso’s first time putting bacon somewhere it doesn’t belong on paper.
He’s already won a Big Tex Choice Award with bacon in a margarita, back in 2015. He won again in 2016 with State Fair Cookie Fries, and again in 2024 with cotton candy wrapped around bacon on a stick.
His first win, in 2013, was a deep fried Cuban roll, a nod to his father’s Cuban immigrant roots in Dallas.
Four wins out of twelve finalist nominations, over 21 straight years at the Fair. That’s not a guy stumbling into a weird idea once.
That’s a guy who figured out years ago that bacon is his most reliable wildcard, and keeps cashing it in a different category every time.
This year’s cider didn’t add a fifth trophy. Fruteria Cano’s Tropical Coco Fresca took Best Taste, Sipper for 2026.
Losing one round out of thirteen tries barely dents a track record like that.
Why Texas Keeps Doing This
Everything is bigger in Texas, including one concessionaire’s willingness to keep testing how many categories a single ingredient can win in.
Most vendors find one signature dish and protect it. Rousso built an entire portfolio around a single move: take something sweet, put bacon in it, submit it, repeat.
The Honest Version
Rousso’s award history, his father’s immigrant background, and this year’s finalist status are all confirmed through direct reporting on Rousso’s Concessions and the Fair’s own award records.
I could not confirm the specific inspiration behind this year’s cider or whether Rousso personally developed it versus a member of his team. If that surfaces, this gets an update.
Thirteen tries, four trophies, and bacon still hasn’t run out of rooms to walk into.
Sources: