What’s so special about Vermont maple creemees?

Vermont’s beloved treat is made with maple syrup and a rich soft-serve base—and it's making its way onto menus around Boston.

There are classic cones of vanilla soft serve, and then there are maple creemees. Both are frozen dairy desserts, but only one of them is largely (and enthusiastically) celebrated by New Englanders—and that’s maple creemees.

What’s all the maple creemee hype for? It takes tasting one to truly understand, but a little background validates their distinction. First, the definition: A maple creemee is a rich, silky-smooth, maple-flavored soft-serve ice cream that originated in Vermont. It’s made with two of the state’s most famous exports: maple syrup and dairy. Crucially, it has a higher milkfat content than regular soft-serve ice cream and is served a few degrees warmer, too, making it extra soft and extra creamy.

According to maple historian Dr. Matthew Thomas, the first ice cream shops using the term “creemee” opened in the summer of 1951: one in Vergennes called “the Cree-Mee Custard Store,” one in Manchester named “Bischoff’s Cree-Mee Stand,” and another in Burlington called “Cree-Mee of Burlington.” But these early creemee stands were selling your garden variety vanilla and chocolate soft serve. It wasn’t until 1981 that the maple-flavored version was introduced at the Vermont State Fair in Rutland by the Rutland County Maple Producers. They’ve been a favorite ever since.

“I mean, it’s ice cream and syrup together,” said Jake Shattuck, the third-generation owner of Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks in Montpelier. “How can you go wrong?”

As one of Vermont’s most beloved spots for maple creemees, Morse Farm has been selling them for nearly 30 years. “We didn’t see a lot of places serving them here [at first], and then people started to catch on,” Shattuck said.

Now, there are dozens upon dozens of creemee stands dotting the rolling hills of the Green Mountain State—and even more strong opinions about which one is best.

Morse Farm, for one, has been making creemees the same way since the beginning: mixing either dark or very dark 100% pure maple syrup with a vanilla cream base. Any Vermonter knows the difference between real syrup and the fake stuff, Shattuck explained, and a true maple creemee doesn’t skimp on quality. While you can order a maple creemee year-round at Morse Farm—which Shattuck encourages visitors to do—you can also buy them to go in 8- and 16-ounce containers.

But Bostonians don’t need to stock up their coolers with to-go containers to enjoy maple creemees closer to home. In recent years, shops across the city have started selling Vermont’s iconic treat, including Momma’s Grocery + Wine in Cambridge and Brighton, Madeleine’s Candy Shop in the South End, and Vinal General Store in Somerville.

Momma’s has been delighting Bostonians with maple creemees in the store and through a take-out window since it opened its first location in North Cambridge in 2023. Owner Danielle Pattavina likes to say Momma’s is a grocery shop with soft-serve, not soft-serve shop with groceries. They thought it’d be the cherry on top of a corner store experience to be able to enjoy a little treat while shopping.

“So when we were choosing what soft-serve flavor we would serve, we settled on maple because it’s something we can source from our foodshed,” they said. “Though maple does have a season—March and April—it stores well, so we can use it year round.”

Recently, Momma’s started offering maple creemees dipped in maple sprinkles from Barred Woods Farm in Johnson, Vt. “We also carry their maple syrup, cocoa mix with maple, and maple sugar—and of course we sell small jars of the maple sprinkles for customers to take home with them,” Pattavina said.

With or without sprinkles, maple creemee sales have been going well, they added, and the feedback has been great. “For many, maple soft serve reminds people of home or a trip or family times,” they said. “Also, lots of people have never tried it and that’s fun to start new traditions.”

As for Shattuck, he isn’t shocked to learn maple creemees are crossing Vermont’s borders. “I’m kind of surprised it’s taken this long to even get to Boston,” he said. He’s considering making a trip to the city to see how they measure up.

Discerning New Englanders will have to conduct their own taste tests. No matter where you get it from, though, a creemee ordered is never a creemee wasted.

“Like I said, it’s cream and it’s syrup,” Shattuck said. “The best of both worlds.”

Madeline Bilis is a freelance journalist based in Boston, where she covers real estate, travel, and design. She will always defend the city’s brutalist buildings.

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