It’s ice cream season in Charleston. Who wants a scoop?
Avocado
Paolo’s Gelato Italiano
41 John St.
Paolo Dalla Zorza has been experimenting with unusual gelato flavors here since he opened his Charleston store in 2003. “Last year it was the flowers: Jasmine, that’s the Charleston flower, rose, violet. This year it’s vegetables: carrot, basil, celery, avocado, rosemary-chocolate.”
But don’t walk in and expect to pick from a long list. Every day they offer eight flavors, made fresh, and since the menu is always in flux, 9,000 of Paulo’s regular customers keep up with what’s coming via his e-mail “Flavor Alerts.” This weekend’s vegetable flavor: avocado.
Says Paolo: “I’m selling an experience: Five minutes in Italy.”
TOP SECRET (“Hunka-Hunka Banana Love”?)
Wholly Cow
Concord Street, downtown; 2070 Sam Rittenberg Blvd., West Ashley; 840 Coleman Blvd., Mount Pleasant
The brain trust at the Wholly Cow plant in Ravenel is getting ready to release a new flavor in early June, only they’re not so sure about the name yet. “It’s modeled after Elvis’s favorite sandwich, so it’s banana ice cream with peanut butter cups in it,” said Billy Claxton, plant manager.
So why the naming angst? “It’s maybe a little risque,” said Claxton. “That could still change.”
Can’t wait until June? “Killa Vanilla,” the company’s best-seller, is made with three kinds of pure vanilla (from Madagascar, Tahiti and Indonesia).
Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream
Grocery stores
Not at Ben & Jerry’s ice cream stores
Ryan Drury, the manager at the Ben & Jerry’s on Market Street in Charleston, answers the question before you can ask it: “It’s only in grocery stores. In pints.”
You can hardly blame people for asking, though: the flavor’s Charleston-native TV-star namesake is to self-promotion as Picasso was to paint.
“Every day people will come in and ask if we have it,” Drury said. “I don’t know if that’s because of the flavor or because of the power he has over people. He talks about it on his show a lot.”
For the record, the ice cream is vanilla “with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces and a carmel swirl.” The company calls it “the sweet taste of liberty in your mouth.”
Peppermint
Moo-na Lisa Gourmet Ice Cream & Coffee
162 Seven Farms Drive, Daniel Island
When John and Terri Moran opened their shop in the fall of 2004, they figured their homemade peppermint ice cream would be a seasonal novelty. Wrong.
“After the holidays I stopped making it,” John Moran said. “I didn’t realize so many people loved that flavor. After they complained for a couple of weeks, I brought it back.”
Looking for a seasonal treat this weekend? John is making a special Derby Pie ice cream in honor of Saturday’s Kentucky Derby. It’s chocolate pecan pie (baked by some friends of the Morans), chunked-up and mixed into homemade vanilla. “I have flavors that you don’t find around here very often.”
Riverdog Ripple
Once Upon A Time
Memoryland
Children of a certain age may remember it, but parents of children of a certain age certainly do, since they were the ones who had to clean it up.
The “team-colors” ice cream of the Charleston Riverdogs in the 1990s featured a powerful purple dye, and The Joe was filled with little kids with faces the color of electric blueberries. In addition to tiny mouths and fingers, Riverdog Ripple also had a tendency to color everything that came out of those little ones for about 24 hours.
Tim Savona, the team’s Food & Beverage director, said the ballpark stopped selling the stuff four or five years back, and officials from Ye Olde Fashioned Ice Cream Shoppes, which also used to carry the stuff, said they had no memory of it. So its origins and secrets may already be lost to the eroding tides of time.
On the bright side, in another four or five years some of those purple stains on the carpet might actually start to fade.
I remember River Dog Ripple and the little handprinted warning sign they had by the flavor label.
Posted by: Heather | May 04, 2007 at 03:12 PM
I definitely remember the river dog ripple from when I was younger and the tales are true! made my doo-doo look just like the ice-cream!
Posted by: gerald | August 12, 2010 at 05:08 PM