Lake Champlain Chocolates

Great chocolate and FUDGE!! Must stop if you’ve never been!

This is about as tourist trap as it gets. The Millennial Chum and I stopped in here on our way into Stowe this past weekend I saw signs for cheese and chocolate and insisted this would be an ideal location for local swag (it wasn't; the mugs in the adjoining shop were $44. Insane. . This establishment is located in a building with several other stores, but it didn't take long for us to organically wander into this one. As mentioned in pretty much every other review, it's a lot to take in, chocolate wise. There's a self serve chocolate variety bin area where you can scoop out preferred flavors at $31/lb (yikes , along with tons of displays with wrapped bars and bags of individual candies. Unsurprisingly, there was a strong maple bent to a lot of the inventory. I wasn't really in the mood for chocolate at the specific moment in time (and the Millennial Chum was right it was overpriced for sure, no matter how good the overall quality of the chocolate and opted for the ice cream, which was nestled in the back corner of the store. There were a few people behind the long counter but I was impressed that the minute I placed myself in front of the ice cream, someone immediately popped over to assist some vigilance points there for sure. Since I was still getting my Vermont sea legs, I went with a small cup of maple ice cream (I think $5ish . Really hit the spot. You can taste the artisanal/small batch goodness of this ice cream just the right amount of creamy, just the right amount of density. While I was still in the middle of consuming the ice cream, I noticed a framed shout out by the door indicating this ice cream had won a few local awards. Unsurprisingly. The Millennial Chum grabbed a few peanut butter cups, but no one was interested in emptying their wallet before we'd even gotten to our official destination of the trip. We noticed after we got into town that this is a mini chain; there was a super cute location just off the main drag in Stowe located in a ye olde home with a porch that I would have preferred to go to instead purely for ambiance purposes. It's pricy; I would be surprised if locals are a significant part of the clientele here. As an aside, I did grab a chocolate mint crunch bar from a local mini mart later in the day, which was tasty but honestly nothing that would significantly set it apart from any other quasi bougie chocolate. I was pleasantly surprised by the ice cream though.

Always a treat to visit and buy a few sweets. We usually buy the bars which are good value for the quality. We also enjoy the cafe which serves ice cream, coffee drinks and hot chocolate.

Just can't recommend this place with how high the prices are. The service and atmosphere is just fine but crazily inflated prices, even for what it is and where it is. Won't be stopping by in the future. A lot of the general/ country stores in the area offer similar quality, freshly made chocolates at better value.

Generic, Boring, Massively over priced. Worse, once again they bought out a far more interesting chocolate shop. First, it was Green Mountain chocolates in Waterbury, now Laughing moon is gone.