Kathleen,

I'm shocked that LaBree's doughnuts (from Old Town) didn't make your list. I'm 45 now, and haven't resided full-time in Maine in over 20 years, but I remember them as though I was eating one now. No bakery anywhere makes a better chocolate sugar doughnut! The consistency of the cake is just perfect, and their recipe achieves the ideal balance between the chocolate and the sugar coating. Their molasses doughnut, well, there’s nothing better with coffee, except maybe their plain.

I got to know them particularly well from a very young age, because my grandparents owned a small restaurant on Main Street in Old Town, where there were always jars of LaBree's doughnuts on the counter. My mother, sister, and I lived with my grandparents while my father was serving in the Army overseas, so we were in the restaurant daily along with the local regulars. I probably ate a LaBree's chocolate sugar doughnut daily that year. In addition, one day I couldn't be found in the restaurant, and soon a LaBree's delivery man came in and announced that a small boy had climbed into the back of his truck and helped himself. All I've eaten have been paid for since then, but the memory of the "incident", as well as of the doughnuts themselves, makes LaBree's my hands-down favorite doughnuts anywhere.

Cheers,

Kevin O'Connell