Vermont Country Store makes old-fashioned food fun again, sort of

Daniel Neman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Mar 24, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

The funniest part of the Vermont Country Store catalog is the underwear.

The women’s cotton briefs they sell reach from the belly button to the knee. I exaggerate, of course, but probably by less than you think.

They do not sell men’s underwear. They don’t sell much in the way of men’s clothes at all — just five of the current catalog’s 100 pages are devoted to menswear, including nightshirts in burgundy and green.

Nightshirts are what Ebenezer Scrooge wore, and people of his era. And that is the point. If your grandparents used it, they sell it at the Vermont Country Store.

Wind-up watches. Patchwork quilts. Elderberry tonic.

My eye was first caught in the current catalog by a page titled “Tried & True: Kitchen helpers that just plain work — Guaranteed!” It includes the kitchen gadgets we all grew up with but maybe don’t use anymore.

Flour sifters. Stainless steel ice cube trays that “won’t crack like the plastic ones.” A small butter churner that does the same thing a blender can do but costs $49.95. That hand-held can opener you think of when you think about can openers (that one I still do use).

On the opposite page, they offer a coffee percolator.

I have made fun of the Vermont Country Store in the past. It was Halloween, and they specialized in the old-fashioned candies that all kids hate (or at least me, but I suspect it is all kids): Mary Janes, Bit-O-Honeys, Necco wafers and the like.

But to be honest, I appreciate the Vermont Country Store and what they stand for. As William F. Buckley would say, they stand athwart fashion trends, yelling “Stop!”

“Athwart” is the sort of word that is still used by people who like the Vermont Country Store.

The food they like is the food I like. And because the current catalog is geared toward Easter, most of the food they sell are sweets. Let’s delve in.

Naturally, they offer a wide selection of the usual chocolate eggs and chocolate bunnies, but it is the variations that fascinate me.

I always enjoy those speckled pastel eggs, with a candy shell around chocolate around a malted milk ball, but theirs have a marshmallow center. Another type has a caramel center. As much as I love malted milk balls, these may be improvements on the idea.

They have stollen, which is apparently eaten at Easter as well as Christmas, at least in Vermont. They also sell fruitcake, which can’t possibly be traditional for Easter. But fruitcake lasts a long time, so maybe they have some left over from Christmas?

Among actual Easter candies, they also offer gum drops, including spiced gum drops, and jelly beans, including a bag of black jelly beans for the six people who like them.

But my favorite Easter option is chocolate bunny ears. Not the bunny, just the ears. You know, the best part.

A couple of other places also make chocolate bunny ears, including St. Louis’ own Bissinger’s Chocolates. But the Vermont Country store was the first place I saw them, so they get points for that.

The catalog abounds with other examples of old-fashioned treats, too, including red licorice laces. Red licorice laces were the next best thing to Twizzlers, which were the best thing.

The catalog also has root beer barrel candies, which I will eat if they are in front of me. And if you remember Ice Cubes chocolates and wonder where you can still buy them, well, now you know.

They have those liqueur-filled chocolate bottles that are never as good as you think they are going to be, and chocolate-covered graham crackers that are better than you remember.

They even have a hollow chocolate Easter egg that is filled with five little chocolate chicks. Which is really weird and sad, when you think about it.

That sounds like an unnecessary modern touch to me. But my grandparents would approve of everything else. Maybe even the nightshirts.