Saturday - Turkey Hill Experience - Part 2 - Taste Lab

After getting our first ice cream samples in the "Experience" part of the tour, we read up on some information associated with the making of ice cream by Turkey Hill as we enjoyed our ice cream samples. 

Before you read on -- guess what their most popular ice cream flavor is! (Even if you don't know the flavor names for Turkey Hill ice cream, make a guess!)

Different specialty flavors for different regions -- Southwest US - Black Walnut; Hawaii - Red Bean (made with azuki beans); Midwest - Blue Moon (bright blue and tastes like Froot Loops cereal); Eastern PA - Teaberry (another name for wintergreen); New England - Grape Nuts (with maple syrup on top); Boston - Coffee

Did you guess Vanilla Bean as #1? Is your guess in the top 12? Is your favorite in the top 12?

I would have guessed chocolate -- but that's because the more chocolate the better for me! My preference is for super dark chocolate gelato, but that is not generally available...

Interesting information about the composition of milk

We had read quite a bit from the displays on the "Experience" floor, but it was time to make it down to the "Taste Lab"...

In the Taste Lab

Carl wants to figure out how to install these "inclusion" supply containers in Gracie! (He amended his wish to say that there were probably only about 10 of the inclusions that he would like to be readily accessible in the rig.)

These containers were provided at our tables. The front small tubes are flavors -- just 3-5 drops are needed for our ice cream creations. The larger tubes are toppings or swirls to be added at the end.

We were guided through the process of creating our flavors -- we were given a cup of plain vanilla ice cream and encouraged to try different things.

These were our final products -- Carl's (on the right) had coffee and maple flavor and then added inclusions of toffee, waffle cone, chocolate bits, expresso pillows, and finished up with chocolate and cherry syrup and caramel. Patti's (on the left) had cinnamon flavor, then added toffee, waffle cone, chocolate bits, and chocolate covered mini pretzels, and finished up with chocolate and caramel syrup. We were both pleased with the results!

We enjoyed our Turkey Hill Experience and Taste Lab, though it really did not seem to make much sense to us how many parents had brought relatively young children to the Taste Lab... and it was obvious how many kids were on a sugar high by the noise level inside!