After 3 1/2 hours of nonstop eating, I can feel my stomach shutting down.

I’ve sampled a dozen sweet and savory fried foods at the San Diego County Fair and my digestive system is working overtime processing crazy creations like deep-fried coffee, a caviar-topped Twinkie and a sticky Fireball whiskey doughnut.

Every year, the OC Fair food vendors try to outdo each other with epic deep-fried concoctions, typically honed in Del Mar before debuting in Costa Mesa. With the 125th OC Fair kicking off Friday, this year is exceptional. These legendary junk food gurus have added roughly 30 new items to their menus –- more than I can remember from years past.

I set out to try the most insane, flavorful and whimsical, which amounted to 17 items. That’s close to double what I normally try each year during my annual pilgrimage to San Diego County.

I had three eating accomplices with me, including my 15-year-old daughter, Hannah. But by midday the gut-busting foods were taking their toll. Two of my tasters (fair employees) called it quits.

Hannah heroically hung in there – that’s my girl! – and so did I. My brain refused to listen to my stomach’s “no trespassing” signals. I had five more foods to try before my record-breaking eating spree was done.

So I took a deep breath, gulped half a bottle of water and managed to complete my culinary crusade.

Besides the luxe Twinkie, the drunken doughnut and deep-fried espresso grounds, we tried deep-fried corn on the cob (two ways), deep-fried pizza, a Girl Scout cookie-inspired Samoa doughnut, two types of seasoned potato chips, chocolate-covered pork rinds, a chili relleno cheeseburger, a Cuban fusion burger, wasabi bacon bombs, bacon-covered pork belly on a stick, a deep-fried dill pickle stuffed with peanut butter, a deep-fried SlimFast diet bar (yes, I kid you not) and deep-fried sliced Granny Smith apples.

We were impressed by the creativity this year, some developed exclusively for the OC Fair, like Chicken Charlie’s $125 caviar Twinkie and Chuckwagon’s deep-fried cinnamon apple rings.

Some fell short, like the corn dog-style deep-fried corn on the cob.

But others were pure genius, like the deep-fried coffee at Bacon A-Fair and the fiery chili relleno burger at Grant’s Tasti Burgers.

Check out our review of each fair food in our slide show.

Contact the writer: nluna@ocregister.com and follow the Fast Food Maven on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.