As the long, hot days of summer continue to fade, bringing cooler weather and more time spent indoors, ice cream is probably not your go-to snack anymore – that is unless you’re looking for a good chick flick to curl up on the couch with. However, just because the weather is getting colder and the days shorter doesn’t mean those in the ice cream industry can take a break.
Business must go on. One shop in Lexington, Kentucky, has come up with a rather ingenious way to keep sales up and people interested in their frozen delicacies no matter what the weather or season. Instead of naming their new ice cream flavors with familiar delicious sounding names, Crank & Boom likes to call them after people in the news, both locally and on a national level.
For instance, when COVID hit earlier in the year, the state’s governor, like most government leaders, took to giving daily and weekly press conferences on updates, social distancing guidelines, etc. And so the popular ice cream shop decided to name one of their newest creations after Governor Andy Beshear, as well as the American Sign Language interpreter.
“Kenneth,” who apparently is “the slide technician who is never seen during the briefings but plays an integral role in showing the slides to which Beshear often refers,” also got his own flavor at Crank & Boom.
But now, with an assumed new president-elect and vice-president having been announced by mainstream media, the shop is going a little more national.
Their newest flavor: Kamala Pecan.
As you can probably imagine, the original name was to be Caramel Pecan, but with the election just ending and a winner with a name all too similar, it seemed only fitting, the shop owner says.
The flavor is a caramel ice cream with chopped and candied pecans as well as a salted caramel sauce added in. Now, if you love caramel the way I do, and in particular, salted caramel, you might be drooling a bit right now. However, I don’t know if I could ever quite get over the name.
Then again, Crank & Boom owner Toa Green says that the name was and is not meant to be a political statement. Instead, she sees it as a “celebration for women everywhere, especially women of color, who are getting a seat at the table that so many have fought for before us.”
I guess I could get behind that, as I think many Americans could.
Green said, “As an Asian American, ½ of an interracial marriage, and the daughter of immigrants, seeing that my story and the story of so many other women in this country could look like this, means more to me than I could ever express.”
And I do have to say it’s inspirational in a way. While I disapprove of Kamala Harris herself’s near socialistic tendencies, I do recognize what she symbolizes for many around the nation. Not only does she give rise to the idea that women can and are just as capable as men in the workforce, but also that someone of a minority race is.
Kamala is both African American and Indian, two races that have very much been discriminated against in times past in this nation. So to have her supposedly be just elected to such a seat of power and prominence says much about how far we have come in getting over our racial divides.
However, if you plan on treating yourself to this flavor or really any other at the shop, be prepared to pay a bit of a high price. No, Crank & Boom Craft Ice Cream Shop is really not overpriced when compared to other similar ice cream vendors.
But at $4.00 a scoop, it’s definitely more than getting a pint from your local grocer. And I don’t know nearly anyone, small children excluded, who only get one scoop of ice cream. I mean, go big or go home, right?
Then again, the money does go to a could cause. At Crank & Boom, this particular flavor, as well as any listed on their pre-sales list, contributes a portion, $2 from each pint sold, to Step by Step Emergency Fund, which helps single moms. A pint is $10.00.