On Sunday, August 11 Heritage Fire — a whole animal, live-fire cooking festival — will touch down at Stem Cider’s Acreage Farms for its second Colorado event this summer. The three-hour cookoff from farm-to-table and ethical sourcing mavens Cochon555 will celebrate heritage breed farming with over 3,500 pounds of meat, an impressive selection of international wines, charcuterie, artisan cheeses and an array of microbrews. The open-air bacchanal will feature an endless array of bites from some of the area’s best chefs and purveyors, including Basta’s Kelly Whitaker, OAK’s Steve Redzikowsk, The Populist’s Theo Adley, Blackbelly’s (and Top Chef’s) Hosea Rosenberg and 17 others.

READ: Stem Ciders Opens Acreage with Gluten Free Menu and Triple the Ciders

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After touching down in Snowmass in conjunction with the Aspen Food and Wine Classic in June, Heritage Fire held a July edition in Napa before returning to the Front Range for this weekend’s occasion. The decision to hold the event simultaneously with one of the nation’s most prestigious food events, then again in the country’s most acclaimed wine region speaks to its caliber. Chefs will construct their own fires and roast a wide array of beasts from both land and sea including lamb, goats, pigs, ducks, dry-aged beef, foie gras, sturgeon, clams and heirloom vegetables. A pop-up butcher demo with Kate Kavanaugh and Josh Curtis from Western Daughters and a hand-crafted punch challenge presented by El Tesoro Tequila will supplement the already decadent affair.

READ: The Best Things We Ate and Drank at the Aspen Food and Wine Classic

Heritage Fire will serve as a fundraiser for Cochon555’s sister charity Piggy Bank — a sanctuary heritage pig farm designed in hopes of improving the state of the pork industry, creating a system of open access agriculture through free and fair exchange of techniques and information and serving as a kickstarter for new family farms.

While the festival will act primarily as a celebration of good food practice, organizers hope that the feast will have an edifying effect on visitors’ understanding of ethical sourcing and farm reform. While the whole setup may deter the squeamish, there are few events that do as good a job connecting diners, farmers and chefs in such a direct and palpable proximity. If seeing food with the face still attached is not a problem, Heritage Fire is sure to be one of the summer’s most delicious gatherings yet.

Heritage Fire takes place on Sunday, August 11 from 4:30 – 7 p.m. at Acreage by Stem Ciders at 1380 Horizon Ave., Lafayette. Tickets are $150 for regular and $200 for VIP and are available here.

Photos courtesy of Heritage Fire by Cochon555.