The Cider Donut
Getting a cider donut in October isn't optional, it's closer to a rite of passage. Every orchard on this list fries them fresh, and everyone has a strong opinion about which style is correct. Plain is for purists who want to taste the cider in the dough or has a strong cup of coffee to go with it. Cinnamon sugar is the crowd favorite, warm enough that the sugar half melts on contact. Powdered sugar is the messiest option and nobody regrets it.
Finding the Perfect Maple Latte
If you're skipping the drive out to an orchard, or just want a second act after one, downtown Burlington has no shortage of places putting real Vermont maple syrup into an espresso drink. Part of the process is where to find it, the other part is where to enjoy it. A few worth the stop:
- Kru Coffee — right at the top of Church Street, known for house made syrups and a maple latte that regulars order on repeat.
- Black Cap Coffee & Bakery — Church Street Marketplace, pair the maple latte with something fresh out of the bakery case.
- Onyx Tonics — a smaller downtown coffee bar with a rotating menu, maple latte included.
- Muddy Waters — just off Church Street, a longtime downtown standby for a warm mug and a place to sit for a while.
What to do with all those apples
Once you're back home with a bag of Cortlands or MacIntoshs you didn't plan for, Vermont farmstands and grocery shelves are stacked with ways to use them, or skip the work entirely and buy the goods already made.
Apple cider is the baseline. Every orchard above presses their own, and it varies more than you'd think, sweeter at Hackett's, a little sharper at Shelburne depending on the blend that week.
Apple pie and apple crisp show up at every farmstand from Labor Day on. Hackett's homemade pies get called out by name by regulars, and it's hard to go wrong with a crisp from any of these four.
Turnovers, apple butter, apple cider vinegar round things out. Shelburne makes their own vinegar. Most stands carry apple butter alongside the maple syrup and honey, which is a very Vermont sentence to write.
If you want the twist: Shelburne Orchards also makes a small batch aged apple brandy, and their non-alcoholic Ginger Jack, a concentrated cider and ginger mix, is worth grabbing for the drive home.
It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
Apples get most of the attention until it's time to leave, but every one of these stops also grows pumpkins, and Vermonters treat pumpkins as their own event. Sam Mazza's pumpkin patch is a destination on its own, with a tractor-pulled wagon to get you out to the field to wander before the corn maze. Chapin's retail barn stacks pumpkins and gourds right alongside the apples. Hackett's grows theirs on the same conserved land as their orchard, so the pumpkin you carve probably grew a few hundred feet from the apples in your pie.
Beyond the porch and the jack-o-lantern, pumpkin earns its keep in the kitchen. Pumpkin pie is the obvious one, and it belongs right next to the apple crisp. Roasted pumpkin seeds are the easy win nobody skips, toss them in a little oil and salt, roast until they snap. From there it opens up: pumpkin bread, pumpkin soup with a little maple syrup stirred in.
And the Beer Gets Involved Too
Fall in Vermont is also Oktoberfest season, and the state's breweries take it seriously. Marzen style lagers, which is the classic malt forward Oktoberfest beer, show up on tap lists across Burlington through late September and October. Switchback brews a Marzen Fest Bier and throws a week long Oktoberfest celebration at their Flynn Avenue taproom, complete with pretzels and schnitzel sandwiches. Zero Gravity puts out an Oktoberfest Marzen Lager and hosts their own celebration at the Beer Hall. Queen City Brewery's version leans toasty and malt forward, brewed with German malt and hops start to finish.
None of this requires a plan. Pick apples in the afternoon, find a Marzen on tap that evening. That's the whole season in two sentences.
