When most people imagine some tasty ice cream flavors, visions of rocky road, mint chocolate chip, cookies and cream, strawberry or — if you're a total square — vanilla come to mind. But not Tom Purdum.
He spends his time mixing up flavors like maple bacon, avocado, coffee and doughnuts, chipotle chocolate and lemon lavender.
Purdum is the owner of Brain Freeze Creamery, a 13-year-old company that makes ice cream in Spokane Valley and supplies it to more than 20 local restaurants and ice cream shops. This week, Brain Freeze opened their own shop in Kendall Yards, where they serve 24 of their 100-plus flavors and plan to test out some of their new concoctions.
"The nice thing about having our own store is we can do crazy things and come up with strange flavors," Purdum says.
At their new shop you can already get some of the aforementioned flavors (they'll rotate) and other adventurous varieties like Black(less) Licorice, which tastes like black licorice but isn't black, and Palouse crunch, a mixture of almonds, cinnamon, honey and red lentils.
Some of their tamer flavors, like Cakey Doe (cookie dough and cake batter), salted caramel and regular chocolate, will be on hand, along with two vegan options and two sorbets. All flavors are $5 for a scoop, $2.50 for an extra scoop, $2 for a kid scoop.
The shop also will be a place to get a cup of Anvil coffee and other coffee creations like espresso shakes and affogato. You can also fill up on sandwiches. Some of Purdum's creations include a grilled beer cheese sandwich made with their own beer cheese and the Mozzacado, stacked with avocado, basil, peppers, fresh mozzarella and tomato (around $8).
The creamery also makes a coffee barbecue sauce, which will be sold by the jar in the shop; Purdum says he plans to make some kind of coffee barbecue chicken sandwich with it.
As for future items? "You never know," he says. "You might see a scoop of ice cream on a sandwich some day." ♦
Brain Freeze Creamery • 1238 W. Summit Pkwy. • Open daily, 7 am-9 pm • brainfreeze.bz • 838-7822
