Iconic Alabama ice cream is going away, but not for long
An iconic North Alabama ice cream treat that’s been around for more than a century is going away for now, but it shouldn’t be gone long.
Trowbridge’s Ice Cream & Sandwich Shop in Florence sold the last batch of its signature orange-pineapple ice cream earlier this week after supplier Mayfield Dairy Farms decided to discontinue the flavor, Trowbridge’s owner Pam Trowbridge says.
“It was just a sales thing,” Trowbridge tells AL.com. “It’s a regional flavor, and they have to make 600 three-gallon containers in one run. That’s their minimum. So, they just didn’t have the sales to support it, I guess.”
And while Trowbridge’s sells a lot of orange-pineapple ice cream, they don’t sell that much.
Not to worry, though.
Trowbridge, the fourth-generation owner of the ice cream shop her great-grandfather started 105 years ago, says she has already found another dairy – Nash Family Creamery in Chapel Hill, Tenn., just south of Nashville — to continue the Trowbridge’s tradition.
Nash is currently in the “development phase” of fine-tuning the recipe, Trowbridge says.
“They’re trying to replicate the orange-pineapple, but they haven’t quite gotten it yet,” she says. “That’s where we are. We will have it again.”
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Nash has made a couple of sample batches of ice cream that Trowbridge is letting her customers test until the finished product is ready to serve.
“They had not even tried (making) the orange-pineapple (before),” she says. “They made it just from our description of it, and they got pretty close to it.
“They sent that (first batch) over, and we told them no, it’s too sweet, and it doesn’t have enough fruit in it,” she adds. “So, they made another batch, and it’s closer but it’s not quite right yet. . . .
“We’ve got a two-and-a half gallon sample for customers to try that we will sell with the disclaimer that this is in-the-process.”
It could be a few weeks before the orange-pineapple ice cream that Trowbridge’s customers have come to know and love returns, Trowbridge says.
“I am taking (Nash) some of the old Mayfield orange-pineapple,” she says. “I’m going to drive it up to their facility, so they’ll have something to go on. But it may be a month or so before they get it figured out.
“We will have orange-pineapple ice cream, even if we have to make it ourselves,” she adds. “But I don’t want to do that.”
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The orange-pineapple ice cream has been a favorite of Trowbridge’s customers since Texas dairy farmer Paul Trowbridge moved to town and opened Trowbridge’s Creamery, as it was then known, on North Court Street in 1918.
The shop not only remains in the same family, it’s still in the same location.
Trowbridge’s made its own ice cream until the 1960s, Pam Trowbridge says, but subsequently, the family began buying their ice cream from Midwest Diary, then Meadow Gold Dairies, and then Mayfield Dairy Farms.
In addition to the basic vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice creams, Trowbridge’s also serves such specialty flavors as buttered pecan, black walnut, and cookie dough.
But the orange-pineapple ice cream — one of the Alabama Tourism Department’s “100 Dishes to Eat in Alabama” — remains the best-seller.
In 2021, Trowbridge says, she sold about 270 three-gallon containers of Trowbridge’s signature flavor — in cones, shakes, sundaes and by the pint.
It is a flavor like none other.
“It’s an ice cream, but I feel like it leans more towards the sherbet flavor,” Trowbridge says. “It’s really a refreshing and effervescent kind of flavor. It’s unusual. It’s a combination of two of the best fruits, and everybody just loves it.”
Trowbridge’s Ice Cream & Sandwich Shop is at 316 North Court St. in Florence, Ala. The phone is 256-764-1503. For more information, go here.
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