Graeter's Ice Cream

Graeter's is a local chain of the ice cream and also candy shops which originated in Cincinnati, Ohio in year 1870. They are premium; thick ice cream had been featured on Food Network, and also had earned them many dedicated fans including Oprah Winfrey. Their signature flavor is actually a Black Raspberry Chip.

"French pot" process

Graeter's ice cream is made in the French pot process. The ice cream was mixed is placed into a chilled, spinning this French pot. As the liquid freezes, a worker scrapes down the sides of the pot with the blade. For flavors that also include chocolate chips, liquid chocolate is then poured into the pot, and freezes into a very thin shell on top of the ice cream. A worker uses the blade to break up this shell and then mix it into the ice cream, resulting in Graeter's' famous huge and dark chocolate chips.

Despite being very labor-intensive, every batch of ice cream is the only about two gallons. The resulting ice cream is very thick that it must be hand-packed into the pints. The pints are normally sold at Graeter's stores, and also at grocery stores of Kroger, also a Cincinnati-based company. Because of a small batches and a very high amount of labor involved, Graeter's pints are even more expensive than all other brands of premium ice cream, such as Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Haagen-Dazs.

Graeter's locations

Graeter's have stores located around Cincinnati, Columbus, and Dayton in Ohio, and around Lexington, Louisville, and also at Northern Kentucky. A shop in Paramount’s Kings Island amusement park could open in the summer of 2006. (Graeter's has investigated opening a shop in Kings Island in the past, but dropped the idea after questioning their ability to keep up with the high demand.)

List of Graeter's flavors

Black Cherry
Black Raspberry Chip
Butter Pecan
Buckeye Blitz
Caramel
Chocolate
Chocolate Chip
Coconut Chip
Cookie Dough Chip
Cookies And Cream
Double Chocolate Chip
Mint Chocolate Chip
Mocha Chocolate Chip
Peanut Butter Chip
Strawberry
Toffee Chip
Vanilla