Saint Louis has two premium ice creameries I know of: Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream and Clementines. Jeni’s is a chain, and the Saint Louis location is located close enough to other places I visit annually … like the hospital and the zoo … so I can easily make an exception to the diet and taste some.
I’ve never been to Clementines because it’s just too far off my beaten track, but now they’re opening up a location just a few miles away. It’s by the closest farmers’ market and the best barbecue place. If I can’t make it out, they deliver.
Evidently half of Clementines’ menu is liquor-laced ice cream, which I will have to ignore. Ignore, not because I’m teetotaling, but because ice cream laced with wine and bourbon sounds like ice cream laced with bile and machine oil. (Parent pro tip: if alcoholism runs in your family, dose your children with honey and whiskey when they are sick. They will forever hate the taste of alcohol. And honey.)
From what I see of the menus, Jeni’s has a greater variety. I enjoy the berry crumble there. Clementines’ sober choices seem to rely on combinations of vanilla, caramel, baked goods, chocolate, cinnamon, and nuts. There are two vegetation-based flavors: vegan lemon poppyseed and honey (ugh) lavender. (I’m ignoring the blue-flavored option which is clearly there to placate children.)
However, Alton Brown has approved of them, and they’re local, and who can say no to gooey-butter flavored anything? I’m trying them once or twice this spring until the suits don’t fit.