Though alcohol has long been used as a flavoring in ice creams, it was only in the past decade that boozy i c e creams have become a trend.
What are boozy i c e creams?
Boozy i c e creams are alcohol-infused ice creams that combine everyone’s beloved childhood dessert and favorite adult treat. Available in so-called ice cream “barlors,” boozy i c e creams became even more popular during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when a lot of people were stuck at home and looking for new ways to relax and escape.
According to Nation’s Restaurant News, a single order of boozy i c e cream from well-known ice cream barlors typically costs $12 to $15. But if you want to satisfy your craving without spending too much, you can always make boozy i c e cream at home.
How do you add alcohol to ice cream?
Making alcohol-infused ice creams can be very tricky, as alcohol has a much lower freezing point than water. Adding alcohol to ice cream increases the proportion of liquid syrup to solid fat and ice, which makes for a softer scoop. But adding too much alcohol to ice cream makes the frozen treat too soft and lose stability in storage, resulting in ice crystal formation.
If you’re not good at cooking measurements, you can still easily make your own boozy i c e cream at home with Hijinx, a new dry ice cream powder that lets you create ice cream with just a blender and a little culinary enthusiasm.
Created by an engineer, Hijinx is for foodies who are not afraid to explore new flavors. To create your desired boozy i c e cream, simply pour Hijinx powder into the blender, add in milk, add your alcoholic custom flavors (Rum, Bourbon, Rosé, Ale, or other liquors), and blend. Put the concoction in the freezer for 4 to 6 hours, and voila ― your boozy i c e cream is ready to be enjoyed.
Available on the Hijinx website, one $9.99 pack of Hijinx yields a pint of ice cream. Click here to see detailed recipes for different boozy i c e creams with Hijinx.
Does boozy i c e cream get you drunk?
The average 12-ounce beer contains about 5% alcohol by volume (ABV), and since a pint of ice cream is about 16 ounces, it would be pretty tough to reach that concentration of alcohol in ice cream.
“You would have to eat a lot of ice cream to be the equivalent of two to three standard drinks,” Douglas Goff, a food science professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, told HuffPost. “Probably you’d get satiated by the fat [before you get drunk]. So no, it won’t make you drunk.”
That, however, doesn’t mean that eating boozy i c e cream doesn’t have an effect at all. “Like with the consumption of any alcoholic beverage your tolerance depends on body size, hydration, and what you’ve eaten that day. If you’re a regular drinker, it’s unlikely that you will get more than slightly buzzed from consuming our ice cream,” said Rachel Chitwood, director of sales and marketing for Tipsy Scoop, one of the innovators in the alcoholic ice cream space.