Canteen Creemee

Canteen Creemee

Waitsfield 

Canteen drives me crazy. The food is geniunely great. It's become a local institution. They have good flavors. But they can't get the texture right! Sometimes it's a little icy, other times it just doesn't have the high-fat texture that a great creemee needs. This is about priorities. They do so much there: A huge food menu, stickers, shirts, music, cool flavors. But make your creemees creamy!!!

 

Flavor Selection: 1 Maple and three others. Last visit was maple, chocolate, twist, strawberry, peach, twist.

Value: 0. $4.50 for a small. I did get a very hefty pour last time, but this is a premium price without the product to match.

Texture: 1. I've had icier creemees, but c'mon!

Flavor: 3 Maple flavor was great. A notably sweet creemee!

Window: 0 You order inside and receive outside. I don't love it, but I'm being charitable. At least you can wait outside for your order.

Bonus: 0 Absolutely not. People who are gaga for this place are deluded. They were playing a madonna album, which was nice, and the food is crackin.

TOTAL

• Small Maple, $5.25, 5 LICKS 👅👅👅👅👅👅👅

Seb's Snack Bar

Seb's Snack Bar

South Hero

A solid entry in the People's Creemee category. South Hero is touristy by nature, especially right on the main road, but this is a solid spot with food and creemees that clearly get's plenty of local traffic. Sort of a middle of the road creemee, tbh. Texture is the weak point. This is really a food spot that serves ice cream, and mostly hard ice cream at that. 

• Flavor Selection: 1 Maple, black raspberry, twist, chocolate, vanilla, twist.
• Value: 1. I paid 3.75, but their menu says 2.95. Either way, a good value.
• Texture: 1 A little icy, which is too bad because it's just a mix from a national food destribitor so there should be enough weird chemicals in there to make it smooth.
• Flavor: 2. Seemed like real maple flavor to me, which is surprising! Subtle but good. 
• Window: 0 Average outdoor window. No problems, nothing special.
• Bonus: 0 Worth stopping there, but more as a food spot. No bonus.
• TOTAL
• Small Maple, $2.95, 5 LICKS 👅👅👅👅👅

Red Hen Baking

 

Red Hen Baking

Montpelier  

I wanted to be disappointed by Red Hen Creemees. I'm a man of the people! I wanted this to be overrated. It is not. This is the ideal fancy creemee spot. It is expensive, yes. But the maple flavor bangs. The texture is perfect. They serve maple and a rotating second flavor, which is almost always great. You can get a root beer float, which is good but feels like a waste of such amazing ice cream. You can get an iced coffee float which I thought would be revolutionary but it turns out the bubbles are important. The cones are so good. 

• Flavor Selection: 1 Maple and a rotating second flavor.
• Value: 0. $5.25 for a small. I will say it's a pretty big small because they use big waffle cones and it takes a lot to fill them, but it's still damn expensive.
• Texture: 3 Perfect texture on all the flavors I've had there.
• Flavor: 3 The Maple flavor is very strong, and as a bonus the rotating flavors are always great.
• Window: -1 Red Hen used to have an outdoor window, but they have moved to Montpelier and put the creemees inside. I hope they go back outside when the reopen a location in Middlesex. Until then I have no choice.
• Bonus: 1 Red Hen gets a bonus for pulling off the rare feat of having rotating flavors that are almost all are interesting but still delicious, and importantly don't sacrifice texture. 
• TOTAL
• Small Maple, $5.25, 7 LICKS 👅👅👅👅👅👅👅

Green Mountain Sugar House

Green Mountain Sugar House

Ludlow, VT

This is a classic high-end creemee spot. They just do maple, but they do it well. They've got some real problems, make no mistake, but it's a solid spot. If you're driving through it's worth a stop, but it's not somewhere you're going all the time. Surprisingly good value though! If this was an outdoor window it would change the whole equation. 

• Flavor Selection: 1 Just maple, which is fine. It's a sugarhouse, they don't need to do anything else.
• Value: 1. $3.00 for a small! They save money by using their own syrup, I guess. 
• Texture: 3 Really, really high-fat and creamy. Excellent.
• Flavor: 2. Oddly, for a maple business, the maple flavor was the one thing to improve on this creemee. It's obviously real maple, but it could use stronger flavor! I need to go back and try this place again.
• Window: 0. It's a pretty touristy spot and I get that they want you to come inside, but I cannot endorse and indoor creemee. 
• Bonus: 0. Touristy, but also only a portapotty for a bathroom. Great value, but under-mapled flavor at a maple business. Green Mountain Sugar House is a place of great contradiction. No bonus.
• TOTAL
• Small Maple, $3.00, 7 LICKS 👅👅👅👅👅👅👅