July is national ice cream month, and July 20th is National Ice Cream Day. In honor of this momentous month, I’m taking every opportunity to frequent one of the many local ice cream shops and parlors and stands in Louisville and Southern Indiana. Here are a few of my favorite treats; feel free to leave yours in the comments!
1. The Widow’s Walk Ice Creamery
415 E. Riverside Dr.
Clarksville, IN 47129
812-285-8850
The view from this ice cream parlor is beautiful, and you can rent a bicycle there to work off the calories from their fantastic CYO banana split: pick your favorite three flavors, choose your own toppings, and enjoy the view.
5242 Indiana 62
Georgetown, IN 47150
812-945-6911
This gorgeous little ice cream shop is right on your way to the Georgetown Drive-In. I recommend the soft-serve banana ice cream, though any of their rotating selection of sherbet and ice cream flavors will hit the spot.
Multiple Locations
Louisville and New Albany
If you’ve lived in Louisville for long, you’ve heard of and loved Comfy Cow’s many artisan (rotating) flavors. But this Sunday, (July 20) they’re offering their ice cream sandwiches (choose two of their home made cookies: chocolate chip, chocolate chocolate chip, or ginger snap and add any of their ice creams) buy-one-get-one in honor of National Ice Cream Day. Now that’s something to celebrate!
4. Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen
Multiple Locations
Louisville and Southern Indiana
The Dutch caramel apple pie at the the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen is so good I was tempted to add a scoop of ice cream and include it on the list as an ice cream treat. But that would be cheating, so instead I recommend the strawberry ice cream in a chocolate dipped cone. This treat is a perfect summer snack. The ice cream at Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen is fresh-churned and made from scratch, so it really has that down-home, front-porch, church-ice-cream-social flavor.
5. Dairy Kastle
575 Eastern Parkway
Louisville, KY 40217
502-634-8990
One of the first signs winter is really over is the annual opening of Dairy Kastle, and crowds of people from all over Louisville make Dairy Kastle a popular summer evening destination. Dairy Kastle’s Orange Cow is basically summer in a cup: orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream mixed with milk or sprite.
Multiple Locations
Louisville and Southern Indiana
812-248-4071
You can’t get this right now so it’s almost a shame to include it on the list, but the pumpkin roll sundae at Chiller’s is so scrumptious it’s almost a crime. Only available during the Autumn months (September – November), this delicacy has soft serve, nutmeg-dusted whipped cream, and a slice of pumpkin roll. While you’re waiting for September, you can order the strawberry shortcake sundae, only available during the summer months.
1516 S. Shelby St.
Louisville, KY 40217
502-709-4660
Recently under new ownership, DairyDel has funnel cake fries, which are exactly what they sound like and that’s fantastic. Order those, with a scoop of ice cream on top; but for you ice cream purists out there, their chocolate sundae is pretty delicious.
9421 Smryna Pkwy.
Louisville, KY 40229
You’ll buy this ice cream treat out of a giant, twelve-foot-tall, striped barrel. If that’s not sweet enough for you, get their Brown Derby, an ice cream classic: vanilla soft served dipped in chocolate hardshell.
1817 Graybrook Ln.
New Albany, IN 47150
812-945-6711
This little ice cream shop in New Albany has a wild variety of awesomely-named offerings (including “my little chickadee,” “to the moon, Alice!” “ickey gooey” and “your father’s mustache”) but most tempting is “since Hector was a pup”: vanilla slathered with hot fudge, peanut butter and broadcasted with Butterfinger and a Reese half moon.
10. Berry Twist
3660 Paoli Pike Suite 1
Floyds Knobs, IN 47119
812-923-8305
The sherbet at Berry twist is best served twisted with ice cream or another sherbet flavor (above pictured: the blue moon sherbet swirled with cherry), but more tempting are their array of arctic swirls: particularly the apple dumpling arctic swirl, which has chunks of apple pie.
Photographs are credited in the headings.