Review: Bootleg Creamery

Bootleg Creamery - visited July 30, 2014

Last week, one of our "Pop Up" shops at work was Bootleg Creamery, a small business based in Berkeley that makes and sells "artisanal and avant-garde ice cream". I'd never heard of Bootleg Creamery so I love having the pop up shop concept at work where local small businesses set up a temporary shop in a dedicated room on campus, we're notified who's coming a few days ahead of time and they open during most of business hours.

It's a great way to try out a new business with very little effort on my part. Bootleg Creamery doesn't have a storefront and they sell their ice cream in pints for pick up or delivery in the Bay Area. For our Pop Up Shop, they brought their own freezer unit with a select number of flavors and you could buy it by the scoop or the pint.

Just like Ici Ice Cream, also in Berkeley, you could get a sample taste test of the flavors. Before going into the pop up shop, the lady outside offered us a tasting spoon of the Cap'n Crunch ice cream which appeared to be vanilla ice cream with Cap'n Crunch mixed in. I'm probably one of the few kids who never got into Cap'n Crunch cereal growing up (my mom rarely bought those sugary cereals) so I wasn't particularly wowed by the add-in but the ice cream was good. When we went in, the same woman asked us if we wanted to try any other flavors. I chose the salted caramel....of course.

The freezer unit housed two layers of different stainless steel containers of ice cream. It was actually pretty clever - compact enough for easy travel and the containers on top slid sideways so the bottom layer of ice cream containers could be easily accessed when needed.

Being a two-scoop girl when it comes to trying out new ice cream, I opted for the salted caramel and the Tcho dark chocolate. I'm normally a milk chocolate person but dark chocolate is fine for an ice cream flavor.

The ice cream was good but I have to admit, I'm not enough of an ice cream gourmand to be all that discerning. I mean, I can tell the difference between ice milk, frozen yogurt, low-fat/slow-churned ice cream and premium ice cream but in the battle between premium ice creams, my taste buds aren't that discerning. If it's good ice cream, it's good ice cream.

Fortunately for Bootleg Creamery, it's good ice cream and I can recommend it for any ice cream fans. Unfortunately for Bootleg Creamery, I don't know that I can distinguish it between any other premium ice cream more accessible to me than driving to Berkeley to get a pint or paying extra to have it delivered to me. So while I enjoyed it, I think I'd chalk this one up to being glad to support a local small business more than sourcing a new must-have ice cream place to buy from. If you're in Berkeley though, I recommend giving them a try.