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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSource \/ Tanger Inc & Michele Ursi via Shutterstock<\/p>\n
Deer Park spent most of its history as a quiet farming hamlet known for growing dahlias and fruit, the kind of place with one general store and a couple dozen houses well into the 1870s.<\/p>\n
These days, it\u2019s known for something a little different. <\/p>\n
The Tanger Outlets Deer Park<\/a>, an 84-acre, 805,000-square-foot outlet<\/a> village dropped right into the middle of Suffolk County, has grown into New York\u2019s most-visited outlet shopping destination, according to Tanger\u2019s own property data<\/a>, pulling in millions of shoppers from across Long Island and the city every year. <\/p>\n This September, that same sprawling lot is shutting down retail duty for a weekend and turning into an all-out tasting festival instead.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLong Island Summer Beer, Wine & Spirits Fest\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what to know about the Long Island Summer Beer, Wine & Spirits Fest before it takes over Deer Park.<\/p>\n From dahlia farms to Long Island\u2019s biggest outlet mall<\/p>\n Long before anyone was carrying shopping bags through Deer Park, the hamlet was farmland, and specifically dahlia farmland, a detail that earned it a reputation as one of the \u201cfruit basket\u201d regions of New York State, according to Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/p>\n Farming stayed the local economy\u2019s backbone all the way up until the post-World War II boom finally caught up with it.<\/p>\n The town has picked up its share of local legend along the way too. For decades, residents believed President John Quincy Adams spent his summers vacationing in Deer Park, a myth that turned out to trace back to a local Baptist minister who happened to share the president\u2019s name. <\/p>\n Deer Park\u2019s identity shifted for good in October 2008, when the $300 million Tanger Outlets at the Arches opened on an 84-acre plot. <\/p>\n Built in a European-inspired, open-air courtyard style across 17 buildings, the center now holds more than 100 retail tenants, a 16-screen movie theater, fountains, and landscaped walkways.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also LEED Silver certified, one of only a handful of retail centers in the country to earn that distinction at the time, according to Tanger\u2019s own announcement of the certification<\/a>.<\/p>\n That combination of scale and location, roughly 40 miles east of Manhattan, is exactly why Tanger now calls it New York\u2019s most-visited outlet shopping destination, a title backed by the millions of annual visitors it draws from the more than 18 million people living within a 60-mile radius of the property.<\/p>\n What to expect at the tasting fest<\/p>\n This fall, the same parking lot that usually holds shoppers\u2019 cars is getting cleared out for something considerably more fun.<\/p>\n