When two people order 10 flavors and 30 scoops of Libby’s Italian ice, passersby take notice. They gasp, laugh, ask what you’re up to, ask which flavor you like best, wonder about your sanity. One person with her own questionable sanity tried to steal one of our cups, digging her grasping fingers into the ice. I tugged it away from her, but she changed targets and made off with a different cup, spiking it to the ground and performing some kind of victory dance.
Anyway, Libby’s replaced both flavors, and our tasting was on. Here are my notes, offered for the benefit of others who want to squeeze a little more out of summer—and who need a little help choosing among Libby’s 18 house-made ices, each one a descendant of a century-old family recipe:
Root Beer—an herbal medicinal flash settling into a sweeter, spicier, classic soda glow.
Watermelon—sweeter than the fruit but just as refreshing, with a surprising note of bubblegum.
Vanilla—rich, luxurious vanilla laced with softly chewy almond bits like little buried treasures. (FYI, this is one of two Libby’s ice flavors—Chocolate is the other—made with dairy cream.)
Green Apple—real green apple: tart and sweet like a ripe Granny Smith.
Coconut—delectable, with waves of coconut and a breeze of vanilla.
Blue Raspberry—sugary like cotton candy and mysteriously fruity, as a flavor that doesn’t exist in the natural world should be.
Orange—vivid, evolving citrus notes layered with tangerine and grapefruit.
Piña Colada—pineapple, pineapple, pineapple.
Lemon—too heavy on the sugar and too astringent on the fruit—for me. (My dessertmate thought it was perfectly balanced.)
Raspberry—cherry mid, cranberry treble, raspberry bass.
By the time the ices were more soup than scoop, my companion’s favorites had floated to the top: the Vanilla and the Coconut, with Lemon, Green Apple and Raspberry just behind. Mine were the Vanilla, Apple, Coconut, Watermelon and Orange.
Favorites aside—along with the eight flavors we didn’t try: Banana, Cantaloupe, Cherry, Chocolate, Grape, Honeydew, Lime and Strawberry—we gained another valuable insight: that when it comes to Libby’s Italian ices, it’s hard to go wrong.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
