Ample Hills – Tipsy Trees

NYC Bourbon in Ice Cream

From all around the city, Ample Hills is argued as the best ice cream in the city, the state, and depending on which New Yorkers you ask, the entire country. And if you think about it, these arguments are made with logical reasoning too. NYC is the most densely populated city in the country, and it’s a city that constantly reinvents itself. Ice cream places come and go, but Ample Hills has managed to staple itself into the fabric of the city. With four shops open year round and two additional summer shops, Ample Hills is in a comfortable position to be around for years to come.

So when I visited Ample Hills, in true NYC fashion, I decided to go in the middle of the night. And since there “may” have been a smidgen of drinking beforehand, I decided to chase this feeling and order the bourbon ice cream- Tipsy Trees.

Tipsy Trees Flavor Profile

I’ll admit two things now before I get into this review. First, I might be a little more biased than normal with the flavor considering there’s a bit of intoxication handicap. Second, it took me a while to come up with the perfect picture shot (because I was buzzed). Let’s just say I was a little less than decisive in my artistic vision for the ice cream. As a result, there was more meltage than normal in my experience/review. Ok, disclaimers noted. I’ll proceed to the flavor now.

Fundamentally, we’re looking at a bourbon, brown sugar, and cookie dough ice cream. What’s surprising about the flavors is the strength of each component that goes into it. Bourbon- a strong, downright potent flavor, is hardly even tasted. Cookie dough- another strong component found in the classic chocolate chip cookie dough, feels lighter than normal, but makes up for the light impact with volume. Where normal cookie dough ice creams have maybe one gob of cookie dough every three bites, with Tipsy Trees were looking at least a gob here within each bite. And then there’s the brown sugar. A dark sweetness born from the deep molasses taste intertwined with electrifying cane sugar. This is where the majority of the flavor lies. It’s easy to find bases that act as supports to the added toppings, but here it seems to go back to the roots. The accents of bourbon and cookie dough are only here to orbit the brown sugar planet beneath. So if you’re expecting intensity

The texture is where things really get interesting though. It’s pretty rich and thick, to a point it’s like a really heavy gelato. As I close my eyes and scoop another bite, an image forms in my head. Now this might be the booze talking, but suddenly it felt like I was transported to a bog or even a wooded swamp. Scooping through the ice cream is about as easy as marching through a muddy swamp, and the cookie bits are merely roots for your feet to get caught in. With my eyes closed, it was almost disorienting to try and scoop through the ice cream, and navigate to optimal path to deliciousness. Do I conserve the cookies? Or chop through them spoon in hand like some adventurer clearing through the brush? With each bite, the ice cream melts just a little bit more, making the swamp that more elusive to escape. I push forward with reckless abandon, and with each swampy scoop, I get closer towards exiting the forest to freedom.

The whole thing was…. exhilarating. Now perhaps my description may not come off that way with the whole swamp/bog metaphor, but that is truly how inebriated me felt at the time. And despite the intoxication and the melting, it was able to bring me somewhere. It was able to bring me to that forest, to those… tipsy trees. And finally, after clearing the woods, it brought me to a conclusion of happiness.

Tipsy Trees Conclusion

It’s good. It’s fantastic with a buzz, and probably still excellent while sober. I did feel a little bit of the spins while consuming it, which gave it some extra excitement, but the cookie and brown sugar combo are what got me. There’s only a slight bourbon taste, which can be seen as regrettable if you were truly looking for intense potency. That said, the brown sugar and cookie dough are not to be trifled with. It’s a new type of caramel cookie dough with a little zing for your tasting pleasure.

If you want to try a Tipsy Tree, take a taxi or train to the Gotham Market at: 600 11th Ave, New York, NY 10036.

Read Other NYC Reviews

If you want to learn about some of the other ice creams I tried in the city, follow the New York City tag on these posts, or simply click here.