New Report Names Top Ice Cream Shop In Connecticut

CONNECTICUT — Food and travel ratings website Thrillist has published its annual list of the nation's best ice cream shops, and just one Connecticut parlor made the cut.

The Ferris Acres Creamery in Newtown was named among the country's top 40 super scoopers by the website's editors, on an otherwise unranked list that heavily favored shops in major cities.

Few states can lay claim to more than one worthy ice cream shop, according to Thrillist's analysis. Only Texas (5), California (4), New York (2, both in NYC) and Tennessee (2, both in Nashville) repeated on the list.

The new list of ice cream shops represent "everything that is well and good: new-wave artisan shops challenging the very notion of what should be placed on a cone (or stick, or between cookies), old-school parlors learning new tricks, boozed-up scoops, plant-based creameries, and much more," Thrillist's frozen dessert pundits gushed.

Happily for Connecticut residents, there's nothing new-wave or boozed-up about Ferris Acres Creamery, whose operation is the very definition of "old school." The cool confection emporium is a third-generation business with a lineage as old as the town. William David Baldwin Ferris, who bought the land in 1864, was a descendant of the first Ferris to arrive in Newtown around 1703. Every generation since has had at least one Ferris in the farming business.

Current Ferris family members still whip up small fresh batches daily of local favorite flavors such as Cow Trax and Route 302 Chocolate Moo. In true Connecticut fashion, however, it's their classic vanilla which remains the shop's perennial bestseller.

Ferris Acres Creamery, located at 144 Sugar Street in Newtown, is now keeping summer hours. They are open every day at 11:00 a.m., and close 9:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 5 p.m. Sunday.