Salt & Straw’s December Ice Cream Flavors Are What Buddy the Elf’s Dreams are Made Of
The line around the block at Salt & Straw is one testament to the remarkable taste of their handmade ice creams. The tantalizing sugary smell wafting down the block is another.
If there’s one other thing the line around the block tells you, it’s that Salt & Straw’s ice cream is worth waiting for. Try a lick of any of their handmade ice cream flavors, and you won’t disagree. But now, thanks to the exclusive partnership between Salt & Straw and Postmates, getting your hands on a pint of Salt & Straw ice cream is easier than ever — no waiting in line necessary.
“We wanted to do this partnership to allow people to enjoy Salt & Straw ice cream in new ways,” said Meghan Hastie, Head of Marketing at Salt & Straw. “How fun is it to get pints of ice cream delivered to your doorstep? You can hang out in your PJs and have ice cream brought to you!”
Last week, the iconic family-run ice cream shop released their December flavors — all available on Postmates — and let’s just say this month’s menu would make Buddy the Elf swear off maple syrup and spaghetti for good.
“This time of year is so much about nostalgia and recreating the most beloved holiday treats in ice cream form,” said Meghan. “So things that really scream ‘holiday magic’, but — with our own special twist.”
This is the holiday magic Meghan’s talking about: Peppermint Cocoa, Apple Brandy & Pecan Pie, Gingerbread Cookie Dough, Spiked Lingonberry Eggnog (Portland exclusive), Congressman Blumenauer’s Fruitcake (Portland exclusive), Caramelized Grapefruit Eggnog (Los Angeles and San Francisco exclusive), and Butter-Roasted Chestnut (LA & SF exclusive).
“We start the flavor creation process several months in advance,” Meghan explained. “So we were working on our December flavors over the summer and had to get into the Christmas spirit pretty early. Our ice cream creator and co-founder, Tyler Malek, works with a team of about four people, and they create batch after batch of these flavors and taste them and tweak them, from a little more salt to a little more vanilla to one more drop of peppermint oil.”
First of all, if your LinkedIn profile says “Head Ice Cream Maker”, you have the coolest job in the world. Second, the process actually sounds a lot harder than we would have guessed.
“Tyler’s team gets it dialed, and then we have a few other people taste the flavor to get everybody on board,” Meghan continued. “So it’s a several-month process to get these flavors ready. Even if flavors like Peppermint Cocoa have been on our menu before, we always try to see how we can make them a little bit better each year.”
According to Meghan, creating these December flavors is Salt & Straw’s holiday tradition.
“The Congressman Blumenauer’s Fruitcake flavor is actually one of our favorite traditions,” said Meghan. “The story goes that Congressman Blumenauer would go to to a cabin, bake hundreds of fruitcakes, and deliver them to people around Portland for the holidays. One year, he brought the founders of Salt & Straw a fruitcake, and they decided to team up and make a version of it out of ice cream.”
Since one of Salt & Straw’s core values is to give back to the community, Congressman Blumenauer’s “fruitcaking” tradition served as the perfect inspiration to help them do that.
“We wanted to make it really community focused, so we also partnered up with the Community Cycling Center,” said Meghan. “One of their incredible programs is that they do a holiday bike drive every year, where they provide bikes to children in need. For every pint or scoop of Congressman Blumenauer Fruitcake sold, we donate a percentage of proceeds to the Community Cycling Center.”
Salt & Straw’s strong tie to the community is just one thing that sets the ice cream shop apart. Meghan says the way they create their ice cream is another.
“We make them five gallons at a time in super-small batches,” said Meghan. “Even being six years old and having multiple shops, we still believe in making things in small batches, because it allows us the flexibility to mix things in by hand.”
They avoid cutting corners in pursuit of delivering the most perfect scoop possible to every Salt & Straw customer.
“It tastes better,” Meghan concluded. “You get the perfect ratio of ice cream to caramel or ice cream to cookies — whatever that perfect taste or perfect scoop will be.”
Sounds perfect to us.
Salt & Straw has 10 locations throughout Portland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Ice cream delivery from each location is exclusively available via Postmates. The flavors featured in this article are available for the month of December only, and then refresh on a monthly basis, giving customers new, seasonally inspired options to try.
