{"id":182966,"date":"2026-03-08T07:56:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T07:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/182966\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T07:56:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T07:56:16","slug":"i-drove-an-hour-for-ice-cream-at-this-working-florida-dairy-farm-and-id-do-it-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/182966\/","title":{"rendered":"I Drove An Hour For Ice Cream At This Working Florida Dairy Farm\u2014And I\u2019d Do It Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first time I tasted ice cream from Sutton Milk<\/a>\u2014the only family farm in South Florida selling single-source milk\u2014I immediately understood why people track down their cow-print truck like it\u2019s some sort of celebrity sighting.\n<\/p>\n

As a self-proclaimed ice cream connoisseur, I\u2019ve tasted (more than) my fair share of good ice cream. I\u2019ve indulged in rich vanillas from grass-fed cows in Ireland; I\u2019ve endured the tricky antics of street vendors to score a scoop of thick, stretchy, chewy Turkish dondurma in Istanbul; I\u2019ve stopped for gelato eight times in a day while traipsing around tiny towns in Italy; I\u2019ve shipped myself boxes of Graeter\u2019s French pot\u2013style black raspberry chocolate chip on dry ice when they stopped carrying it at my local Publix (a tragedy).\n<\/p>\n

So when I tell you that the Cookie Monster pint from Sutton Milk\u2014fortunately sold at my very own neighborhood grocer, Bedner\u2019s Farm Fresh Market<\/a>\u2014is my favorite ice cream in the world, that\u2019s no small declaration, and it\u2019s not because I\u2019ve only tasted H\u00e4agen-Dazs, Blue Bell, and Tillamook (though I take no issue with any of those brands).\n<\/p>\n

This ice cream is something special. The texture is impossibly creamy: it\u2019s dense without feeling heavy, rich but clean on the finish, sweet but not cloying. It tastes how I imagine ice cream used to taste before shortcuts, stabilizers, and our shortchanged food system got in the way.\n<\/p>\n

We Floridians happily go the extra mile for sweet treats worth the effort, whether that\u2019s logging eight hours in line for famed farm-stand cinnamon rolls<\/a> or clocking an hour behind the wheel for greener pastures and a pint of old-school ice cream straight from the source.\n<\/p>\n

A Drive Into Old Florida <\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what I\u2019ve done to score the freshest spoonful possible: make a pilgrimage from my home in West Palm Beach, way out west to Okeechobee, solely to visit Milking R Dairy<\/a> farm.\n<\/p>\n

In a time when family-owned farms are too often shrinking or disappearing altogether, the Sutton Rucks family is still going strong, five generations in: they have roots in South Florida\u2019s dairy industry dating back to 1923, and you can taste the difference in their small-batch, low-temp-pasteurized milk.\n<\/p>\n

Their Holstein and Brown Swiss A2A2 cows are milked twice daily, and all the calves are raised right there on the property; their 1,200-cow working farm opens the gates to visitors four days per week so families can experience farm life, set the kids free on the playground, and, of course, order ice cream straight from the dairy.\n<\/p>\n

The family\u2019s ice cream venture started in 2019 as a sweet ending to their educational farm tours, part of their efforts to advocate for Florida dairy. And then, of course, the pandemic hit, temporarily pausing in-person tours but igniting a local craze after a simple social media post offered their extra fresh pints for sale; it took less than 24 hours to empty their freezers.\n<\/p>\n

Credit: <\/p>\n

S.J.C. Photography- Sarah Curtis<\/p>\n

Where Small-Batch Meets Big Demand <\/p>\n

What followed from there were late nights churning batches by hand while still running the farm as usual; the popularity of the side project made it a priority and the family has a blast coming up with new flavors, which they rotate constantly. They currently have around 80 total, with new ones debuting regularly (or being added to the permanent roster if warranted).\n<\/p>\n

The family draws inspiration from beloved Southern desserts and customer suggestions, baking mix-ins from scratch and folding them into cream that really couldn\u2019t be fresher. Cookie Monster has my heart, but Banana Puddin\u2019 has a well-deserved cult following, too\u2014and when Christmas time rolls around, you can catch me stocking up on Debbie Loves Christmas, which has vanilla frosting ice cream chock full of Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes and fresh yellow cake.\n<\/p>\n

Today, Sutton Milk supplies more than 60 South Florida restaurants, shops, and grocers with milk and handcrafted ice cream, but there\u2019s something special about making a half-day of it and digging in on the farm.\n<\/p>\n

Credit: <\/p>\n

S.J.C. Photography- Sarah Curtis<\/p>\n

More Than Just a Scoop <\/p>\n

While there, you can also explore the property, let the kids play on tire swings and seesaws, see goats and other farm animals, and sometimes even stock up on beef (every cut sold here comes from Angus steers born and raised on the farm, so availability is limited).\n<\/p>\n

Go once, and you\u2019ll start planning your return before you even finish licking your spoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first time I tasted ice cream from Sutton Milk\u2014the only family farm in South Florida selling single-source…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-182966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}