According to the the International Dairy Foods Association ice cream makers in the US produced just over 1 billion gallons of ice cream in 2020. It was a rough year and some of us ate our feelings with the average ice cream consumption being 23 pounds of ice cream per person. In Andover, the ice cream "experts" for this article may be eating more than their share in the pursuit of science.
There are 4 places in Andover that you can obtain ice cream including Steve's Gas n' Grub, Rockburgers, Shorts Deli, and that store we're still not talking about. At Steve's you can get ice cream by the half gallon or pint and there is a cooler conveniently near the registers of individually packaged novelty ice creams. Our ice cream experts favor the Oreo drum stick option here, although the SpongeBob ice cream bar does get an honorable mention. One expert stated "You shouldn't usually eat eyeballs, but SpongeBob has gumballs for eyes and they're really good."
When it comes to hand dipped cones our experts tested out both Rockburgers and Shorts. Our experts are known to the Rockburgers staff and they were well prepared for their demands. Each Expert prefers a 2 scoop standard cone with a cherry on top (no whip cream) and their order for their official visit was no different. Our first expert went with 2 scoops of black raspberry, while the other went with one scoop of cookies and cream and one scoop of black raspberry.
Our experts felt that the variety of ice cream offered at Rockburgers was good. They carry Perry's ice cream specifically. The service was friendly and their order correct. However, the experts refused to assign a ranking as they felt they did not have enough data to make a proper assessment stating, "We need to get ice cream a few more times before we make our report. You can't just go one time. That's not science."
Shorts is a newer addition to the ice cream line up in town as this is their first summer serving ice cream in Andover. They carry Perry's ice cream in addition to a having a flavored soft serve machine. Our first expert had a chocolate dipped waffle cone with sprinkles filled with chocolate soft serve. The other expert felt that they should have hard ice cream for a more direct comparison and got cookies and cream in the same chocolate dipped sprinkle cone. A guest expert got a flavor called Queen of Hearts which was a chocolate raspberry flavor. The person on staff that evening did accommodate their request for a cherry on top of their ice creams.
Our experts felt that Shorts had a good variety of ice cream and did enjoy the fancy cones. The service was friendly and the ice cream was served in a timely fashion. However, our experts insisted that they would still need to go "at least 3 more times" in order to get a proper assessment of the ice cream situation, again sighting a good scientific method. I have begun to suspect that the experts are using the scientific method as a ploy to get more ice cream.
Overall the ice cream situation in Andover has been determined to be "good" which is especially timely with the heatwave that is upon us. I recommend going to Steve's, Rockburgers, AND Shorts to try all three options for yourself to assist the expert's data collection efforts.
*I'm informed you can also get ice cream at Hilltop deli. I've never been so someone else will need to do that research.
© AndoverExlusive 2021
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