Cone, Bobtail ice cream shops offer unique flavors
CHICAGO (WLS) -- The summer brings a number of icy treats with it - gelato, soft serve and Italian ice are just a few options. But a pair of ice cream shops are getting even more creative this summer, offering tasty shakes and sundaes with some unique flavors.
Sometimes, I'm happy with the simplicity of a super-premium peach flavor at Homer's in Wilmette. Other times, I crave the mixed berry gelato at Freddy's in Cicero. But lately, I've been swooning over a few creative sundaes, shakes and soft serves that you may not have heard about.
The white chocolate ice cream is made throughout the day at Bobtail Ice Cream, with locations in Wilmette and Lakeview - but when you add tiny peanut butter cups, it turns into something else completely. Like many of the flavor combos here, there is always a twist. Take their peach cobbler sundae, for instance.
"It features our summer peach ice cream, comes in a waffle bowl and it's topped with hot caramel, pecan, graham cracker, whipped cream and a dusting of cinnamon," said Ryan Ouellette, a manager at Bobtail.
The same quirkiness applies to their shakes, like the cream express.
"Our cream express is a vanilla bean ice cream shake with a double shot of Intelligentsia espresso, but the one I made for you today is my favorite variation, and I just did it with cookies and cream ice cream instead," Ouellette said.
One of the reasons these creations taste so good is that the ice cream is 14 percent butterfat, which puts it into the "super premium" category.
"It's super creamy, it's super delicious and the way it melts in your mouth is gonna be totally different from a soft serve product," he said.
But soft serve is no slouch at the new Cone in the West Loop. Here, they'll pull a "99" from their machine, then jam a chocolate flake wafer into it, all the way from Ireland.
"I think with the Irish and English, they came up with the flake - the Irish chocolate flake - stuck on the side of it, and that was the birth of the 99," said owner Sean McGuire.
Much of the ice cream at Cone comes from the Plush Horse in Palos Park, but a trio of Irish-inspired flavors are made elsewhere. All three show up in the "Hair of the Dog" sundae: a scoop of Jameson's, a scoop of Bailey's and a scoop of Guinness made with Irish soda bread. They're topped with dollops of homemade whipped cream and some crumbled Irish chocolate flakes.
"You're feeling better after you have that," McGuire said.
2951 N. Broadway
773-880-7372
1114 Central Ave., Wilmette
847-251-0174
1047 W. Madison
312-666-5111
