Vermont Distilleries & Cheese

Heading out to VT the end of the month for 3 days and would welcome any suggestions related to spirits and cheese. Specifically looking to bring back a bottle or two of gin but open to a few good places to just visit, sample, and maybe tour.

As for cheese I think we can each bring back up to 20 lbs but that may be excessive (or not) but would love suggestions for best places to visit and bring stuff back from (saw the stuff online about the cheese trail but curious what people think are the "must" visits).

Proximity to the Burlington - Waterbury - HF area would be ideal but we are happy to drive for alcohol and cheese.

I just picked up a bottle of Barr Hill Gin from Caledonia Spirits. First taste was good. It’s made with honey, so it’s got a touch of sweetness to it. Different, but in a good way. Might be a worthwhile stop.

For cheese we only visited Cabot Creamery while in Vermont but I quite enjoyed their buffet... err... samples. :)

Cabot was OK. we got our funky cheese fix at the Hunger Mountain Coop and scored some Sip of Sunshine as a bonus.

I’m a big fan of the smoked cheddar from Shelburne Farms. There’s a Cabot annex in Waterbury Center (half way between Waterbury and Stowe) that has all of the Cabot cheeses with samples. Shelburne Farms has a nice cheese tasting area too (much smaller than Cabot) in Shelburne.

I am glad you brought this up. Otherwise I would not have known about any such cheese trail. Now I really want to get up to Vermont!

Vermont Spirits in Quechee is a good stop. They have gin and other items.

Also, there’s a Cheese Trader store in South Burlington that has a huge selection. http://cheesetraders.com/vermont-cheese.html

There’s also a Dakin Farm storefront in South Burlington near the mall. They have some other cheeses http://www.dakinfarm.com/Cheese.html

I’m surprised I didn’t see any information on here aboutLazy Lady Farm in Westfield. She’s known and celebrated for her goat cheeses, but she has a few cow’s milk cheeses under her belt as well.
Finding Lazy Lady cheese is not terribly difficult, either. As far as I know, her farm doesn’t have an official retail shop but rather she distributes her cheese to Vermont grocery stores, general stores, and markets. They have a few of her goat cheeses at Hunger Mountain in their cheese section. Bonapoarte (a riff on the famed French cheese Valencay, Bonaparte is a truncated pyramid of fresh goats’ cheese dusted with vegetable ash) and Oh My Heart (a Brie-inspired, cow’s milk double-cream bloomy rind)
being quite common. She also created a cheese supporting Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries, Barick Obama it was called.

Also, Cellars at Jasper Hill: http://www.jasperhillfarm.com/

As for spirits... Vermont Spirits makes a really good bourbon whiskey -- two of their products incorporate maple syrup, and they also have a really decent Apple Brandy. Not entirely sure where I saw them, but Burlington should have them. Their Hartford building I is open to the public, though, and is located in Hartford, VT.

Awesome info - might have to visit South Burlington for a cheese run before we head out to HF.

Also looks like Hunger Food Mountain and Three Penny Taproom might be a good combo either on the way back from HF or just for a Saturday day trip from Waterbury.

Waterbury Centre is also on the list...love samples/buffet :)

I love the Von Trapp Cheeses particularly Mt Alice http://www.vontrappfarmstead.com/our-cheese/

And The Cabot annex is always a fun cheese lap.