Ice Cream Dream

Two sisters pioneer American Honey Creamery

Dairy farming is in Mindy and Ali Converse’s DNA—and every ice cream flavor the sisters churn out at American Honey Creamery has a rich family backstory.

The young siblings, who started out with a food truck but transitioned to a storefront in Palmetto mid-pandemic, have very sweet dreams.

“There is nothing we appreciate more than being a small-town family,” say the Converses, who grew up in Preston, Connecticut—a town beloved for its quaint New England charm and farming history. “Our biggest goal [as business owners] is to create an atmosphere where people feel at home, surrounded by good food and laughter, which is basically what our day-to-day life seemed to revolve around growing up.”

That tradition continues. The Converses’ grandfather, uncle, and cousins still run a dairy farm and milk about 250 Holsteins a day. So, the sisters are no strangers to hard work and tenacity—skills that have served them well this past year.

“We were able to make it through quarantine by offering ice cream delivery, but we had a lot of inquiries about a steady location for us to be open for pickups,” the Converses say. “We were lucky enough to be able to do a full build-out and fully customize the shop.”

The Converses are also committed to maintaining connections with the local farming community. They source their dairy products from a co-op in St. Petersburg, many of their crops (like berries for the Lemon Blueberry Muffin ice cream) from Sarasota’s Albritton Fruit Farms, their coffee from Java Dawg Coffee in Sarasota and Joffrey’s Coffee & Tea Company in Tampa, their donuts from Sarasota’s Der Dutchman restaurant, and other handmade delicacies from a Sarasota-based Amish bakery.

As for ice cream, the most popular flavor in the shop is American Honey (a salted vanilla honey recipe). But it’s not hard to find inspiration for new blends; the sisters just tap into their familial memory bank.

“The majority of our recipes are derived from old family traditions. For example, one of our early-summer staples is the Strawberry Rhubarb Pie ice cream (our grandmother’s rich rhubarb jam recipe, folded into vanilla ice cream, complete with homemade pie crust pieces),” the Converses say. “Every summer, our Uncle G., who lived just houses down from us, had a rhubarb plant that would go wild, and Grandma Pat would spend days at a time canning this sweet syrupy treat.”

The sisters still pine for the simplicity of that lifestyle. Their 10- year plan? To open a location in a little southern mountain town “where we can have some animals, a place for our parents to retire, and a location where we can spend our summers with our future families,” the sisters say.

Pretty sweet, indeed.

American Honey Creamery: 4919 96th St E, Palmetto; 941-981-3030; americanhoneycreamery.com.