http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/29/AR2005072902133.html
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Forget that "I scream, you scream" nonsense. A block from Rehoboth Beach's grainy sands and churning waves, where beachgoers are baking on a Tuesday afternoon in a 95-degree swelter, Udder Delight Ice Cream House is busy scooping ice cream flavors so outlandish it makes some of its chill-seekers scream, all right.
"Uh, it tastes a little too much like barbecue," says bikini-topped Franny Linus, 25, staring at a creamy beige concoction on a plastic spoon. She grimaces the way people do when sizing up something really weird.
On a day trip from Bear, Del., Linus and her friend Leigh Ann McDonough, 24, flip-flopped into the otherwise old-fashioned ice cream parlor thinking icy-cold mango smoothies. But Udder Delight owner Chip Hearn steered them to an impromptu taste test of his newest creations -- one of which may be the world's first barbecue-flavored ice cream. The other test flavors: a chunky bacon ice cream and a pale-red Cackalacky Spice Sauce ice cream.
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When he called Penn State about making barbecue ice cream, he was instructed to triple the vanilla to offset other ingredients in the sauce. "So the barbecue was just pouring a half-gallon of it into the mix, putting a whole mess of high-end vanilla in there, and the fats of the sauce bonded with the fats of the ice cream," he says.
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When Hearn held a by-invitation tasting a month ago, about 150 people agreed to sample and review 18 flavors, from the new bacon one to others such as cappuccino stout beer, key lime pie, Black Forest (dark chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips and dark Oregon sweet cherries) and honey fig. "There'd be things like, 'This one sucks!' and somebody else would write, 'This one's great, but I wish it had this in' " -- and suggest another ingredient, he says. "The cappuccino stout beer, they either loved it or they hated it. It was like a focus group."
The winners: chocolate raspberry chip, Moo Moo (raspberry ice cream with peaches and strawberries) and Going Nuts With Chocolate (chocolate ice cream with peanuts, almonds, cashews and pecans) -- all good sellers.
Hearn didn't put his "Viagra" flavor to the test. It's made from orange and pineapple in a blue ice cream, with Pop Rocks added at the end. "When it goes into your mouth, you get all the Pop Rocks popping," he says, making no medical claims for the concoction.
Do people buy the Viagra ice cream?
"Less people buying it than asking about it -- but they see the sign and they have to ask," Hearn says.
The weirdest ice cream Hearn has made -- and it's hard to pick just one -- was inspired by the Kennett Square Mushroom Festival in Pennsylvania. "We did mushroom ice cream and mushroom-pecan ice cream," he says. "The mushroom sucked, but the mushroom-pecan rocked! But I would guess that mushroom-pumpkin was the weirdest one ever."
Tricia Collins, scooping a cone for a customer, looks up and shakes her head.
"We just made a cucumber-onion ice cream using Vidalia onions," Hearn confesses. "The onion didn't work, but the cucumber did."
"That's downright weird, Chip," Skelton teases.
Says Hearn: "What I've been saying to them lately is, 'Put a sample in your mouth while you're making up your mind.' It's fun. Ice cream's all about fun."