Onorthward a recent trip to Bar Harbor, Maine I came across a very unusual sighting. A sign outside of Ben & Bill's Chocolate Emporium that said the institution offered lobster ice cream. I thought at offset that it was an ice cream which incorporated lobster gummy candies that you see all over New England or perchance some kind of generic sea table salt season. Eager to satiate my curiosity, I stopped inside the shop and discovered that it's filled with actual lobster meat. Such an unusual combination of savory and sweet flavors got me thinking about how experimental water ice cream flavors have become in the past several years — ditching everyday vanilla and opting for spices, savory options, and even sometimes sprinkling in local ingredients — like lobster — that aren't intuitive centerpieces of a dessert.

The lobster ice cream at Ben & Bill's Chocolate Emporium is certainly one of the most innovative flavors I've come across so far.

"In the early 80s, a couple from New York came into Ben & Pecker's Chocolate Emporium and wanted chocolate peanut butter fudge which I didn't accept at the time," Bill Coggins, one of the owners along with his brother, Ben, tells me. Bill told them to come up back, and in the concurrently made the couple a batch of fudge. They were thrilled.

"I joked, do we get a 10 rating now?" Bill says, "and the couple said no you get a 9 because there's nothing with lobster." Bill laughed and said, "Come up dorsum tomorrow and we'll fix that." He decided to brand lobster ice cream for them every bit a joke but the couple loved information technology. Beak says he and his brother get a lot of ideas for new sweets to characteristic at the shop from customers. Since they make the bulk of the candies and all of the ice foam from scratch, it's easy for them to experiment with recipes.

I had to endeavor the lobster water ice foam for myself. Delicious, melted butter is the ideal partner for steamed local lobster, and flavors of the ice cream reflect that. It'south a butter pecan base ice cream fabricated with real butter and fresh Maine lobster.

"We kept the flavour on the menu and in one case Paul Harvey, a well-known radio show host in the 80s, mentioned the odd flavor on air after visiting the shop on vacation.," explains Bill. "It really became popular afterwards that."

Ben & Nib's Chocolate Emporium is only one among many specialty sweets shops innovating and experimenting in the realm of ice cream. Often, water ice foam shops play with ingredients that reflect the local geography, creating desserts that are homages to the regions where they are available. For case, in Gilroy, California, known as the garlic capital of the world, Marianne'south Ice Foam Shop whips up a chocolate-based garlic ice cream for the annual Garlic Festival in California's Santa Clara County.

Travel to the United States' opposite coast, and yous'll find ice cream flavors that seem equally as baffling but have found a loyal audience. Buffalo, New York, is known for its wings and the owners of Lake Effect Ice Cream, Erik Bernardi and Jason Wulf, came upwards with a flavour called Medium, Extra Flossy in 2019, a play on a popular wings club: medium, extra crispy (the medium refers to the wings' heat level).

No, there's non chicken scattered throughout or fifty-fifty blue cheese, but the wing ice cream packs a punch: The bright orangish vanilla ice cream is flavored with Frank's RedHot sauce. Lake Effect also sells a butter lamb flavor around Easter, a nod to the lamb shaped butter sculptures that are often a centerpiece of Easter dinner.

Rather than be revolted by these unusual ice cream flavors, nearly customers remain curious and open up-minded — which gives ice foam makers more fuel and motivation to keep experimenting with new ingredients. Lauren Guptill, founder of Rococo Ice Cream in Kennebunkport, Maine, consistently invents delicious flavors that you won't notice anywhere else in the land.

The shop has developed some truly wacky flavors over time, similar banana red hot, goat cheese blackberry chambord, strawberry habanero, blueberry chipotle, and sweetness avocado cayenne to name a few.

"Sometimes I think my flavor creation process must be similar for all artists, musicians, and creative types. I think of my water ice creams equally works of art, and only similar an creative person is never truly done with a painting, my ice creams are also continuously evolving," Guptill says.

These flavors grab people's attention, just most of them transcend the level of marketing stunts — shops like Rococo Ice Cream have developed a loyal following. Information technology doesn't seem like people are exhausted withal by increasingly unexpected water ice foam flavors that defy the limits of what a dessert tin can exist. Instead, people crave the surprise of ingredients like cheese, peppers, and even lobster. Basic chocolate and vanilla might be classics that volition never go away — but American ice cream innovators seem especially corking to prove that ice cream is capable of so much more.

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