Graeter's Ice Cream 



For those of you currently on a diet or persons who like myself are diabetic, now would probably be a good time to read another blog entry. Anyone who might lactose-intolerant, now is the time to take two Lactaid ™ Ultras before you read on.

I know that including Graeter's in the restaurant section might be stretching things a bit, but it doesn't really fit anywhere else, so we'll just call it a dessert restaurant/store. The idea to do this blog entry came to me when I was in the Hurstbourne store Saturday night picking up a couple of pints to take home after camera shopping next door at CompUSA. I happened to notice again the laminated copy of Forbes article from October 1999 listing Graeter's at #27 on a list of 100 Things That Are Worth Every Penny. (I may have to do a Forum entry about the list, like what I agree/disagree with, what I think should have been included, and get your thoughts on the list and let you post your own lists.)

I guess I need to include a little insight to Graeter's for those of you who live outside the Ohio River Valley. Graeter's is a company out of Cincinnati that operates ice cream and retail stores in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. The company was founded in 1870 and is now operated by the fourth-generation of the Graeter family. They make their ice creams two gallons at a time by the french-pot method which doesn't whip much air into the ice cream, making it thick, rich and creamier than about any other ice cream anywhere. The chocolate chips are made by pouring melted chocolate on top of the batch of ice cream, freezing the whole pot and taking a hammer and breaking up the chocolate and slowly stirring the resultant chunks into the ice cream. You wind up with chocolate chips that are sometimes bigger than the bowl of your spoon!!

We went in Saturday night as I said earlier, to get dessert, but there weren't many open tables and Lynda was tired, so I grabbed a couple of pints out of the freezer and took them home to enjoy. Graeter's has a variety of core flavors that are always available, as well as several seasonal flavors which they sell for about three months. Right now, they have the autumn and holiday flavors available. I bought the Apple Cider Sorbet for myself and the Eggnog for Lynda. I had tried the sorbet last month for my birthday and had it with caramel sauce just to be decadent, and it was like eating a fresh (although somewhat frozen) caramel apple. It is quite tasty and feels as though it has a slight fizz or effervescence on your tongue, and it has the added benefit of being non-dairy, so I don't have to take a Lactaid™ when I eat it. Lynda pronounced the eggnog excellent for non-alcoholic eggnog, but I just don't know; I prefer a splash of good dark rum in my eggnog, though I cannot have alcohol anymore (makes my blood sugar spike and crash very steeply).

My favorite flavor ice cream there would have to be Toffee Chip (should be called Truckload of Toffee Blocks) which is vanilla ice cream with huge chunks of milk chocolate and English butter almond toffee swirled through it: a frozen Heath™ Bar in Creme, done right, as it were. Lynda's favorite flavor is Pumpkin Spice, which unfortunately for her, just went off the seasonal flavor board the first of the month. It is like eating some of the best pumpkin pie filling you ever had; very, very good. She also enjoys peach ice cream in the summer when Graeter's adds it to their seasonal list.

For the stores in Louisville area that we have tried, the store on Hurstbourne and the one in the Highlands at Douglass Loop usually serves up the biggest portions and the one at Springhurst is the stingiest. For the poor deprived souls who live outside the Graeter's area, they do have an online presence and ship anywhere in the lower 48.

Graeter's Home Page

10 out of 10 stars!
 

Posted: Mon - December 12, 2005 at 10:53 AM          

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