On the Saturday of my birthday week, my husband, Bobby, introduced me to a new ice cream place in Wooster. This was not an official birthday celebration event, as both he and I were done celebrating. He was done on Thursday night; I was done on Saturday morning. However, whenever ice cream is involved, I really don’t need a reason to get it. I think ice cream is one of the main food groups, at least it is in my house and chocolate is another!
Holcomb’s Classics Gourmet Popcorn and Nuts, in downtown, very near the gazebo. It is located across the street from the Courthouse on Market Street, where Cowhaus Creamery used to be. Although it is new to downtown Wooster, Holcomb’s Classics has been in business for several years. The company, which is family owned and operated, started in the concession business selling kettle corn. Michele Holcomb said she and her husband, Rich, had been thinking about opening a shop to sell their popcorn and nuts for some time. They finally decided to open a store in Wooster. Their place includes their popcorn in a wide variety of flavors, their nuts some salted and roasted and some cinnamon roasted, their homemade fudge and Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream.
Bobby spent some time in the back with the Holcomb crew as they were making and packaging their popcorn. He watched Rich make a batch of vanilla popcorn. Seems like a hot and labor intensive process. I’m glad there are people like the Holcomb’s who don’t mind this kind of work. It affords people like Bobby and me the opportunity to enjoy the popcorn without the work involved in making it!
While I like popcorn and nuts, I was all about the ice cream on Saturday. Although, I did try the blue and yellow popcorn that they called Wooster Generals. (The blue and yellow are the school’s colors.) It was good. It tasted fruity to me. Bobby told me it was blueberry and banana flavored. Bobby isn’t a big banana flavor guy, but he thought it was pretty good, too. Again, I’m all about the ice cream! (Two days earlier Bobby had brought home some caramel corn. We really liked that, too.)
Michele stated that they had originally thought they would do soft serve ice cream, but after trying dozens of them at a vendor’s trade show, they changed their mind. They tried Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream. That’s Sterling, Michigan and not Sterling, Ohio. Michele did think that it was probably meant to be that they sell Ashby’s because it is from Sterling and the Holcomb’s are from Sterling, too. That’s Sterling, Ohio and not Michigan!
I had never heard of Ashby’s, so I was eager to try it. They have really cool flavors. The first one I tried was Cool Mint Cookie. This mint ice cream had chocolate covered mint cookie balls and a chocolate cookie fudge swirl. No surprise that it would be something I liked, it has mint and chocolate in it for goodness sake! But I have secretly been thinking that the best ice cream would be a mint chocolate ice cream with mint cookies. While, this didn’t go that far — it wasn’t chocolate mint ice cream — it had cookies instead of chocolate chips. I like mint chocolate chip ice cream, but this was a new twist on an old favorite for me.
Other flavors I tried included Blueberry Muffin Top, which is a vanilla ice cream with a blueberry swirl, muffin pieces and a streusel topping mixed in. I also tried the Ultimate Peanut Butter Brownie flavor which was peanut butter ice cream with fudge brown and caramel drizzle. Bobby tried Happy Camper and Amaretto Cherry. Happy Camper is marshmallow ice cream with sweet and salty pretzel clusters and a pretzel swirl. Amaretto Cherry is made with amaretto ice cream with cherries and chocolate flakes.
What we ended up purchasing were two dips in a waffle cone (you pay extra for the waffle cone, but it is worth it). I got a scoop of the Cool Mint Cookie and the Michigan Pot Hole. The Michigan Pot Hole flavor was chocolate ice cream with a thick fudge and chocolate chunks. They probably should have just called it “Wendi’s” because it had my name written all over it! Bobby got a double dip with one scoop of Happy Camper and a scoop of Eskimo Kisses. Eskimo Kisses flavor is coconut ice cream with fudge swirl and chocolate truffles. We both really, really enjoyed our ice cream cones. Ashby’s ice cream is good, real good and the scoops were real big.
Holcomb’s Classics has a nice establishment. While they’ll still be doing some fairs and festivals, they are looking forward to getting established in Wooster. If they keep serving Ashby’s Ice Cream and their kettle corn, I can’t imagine them having any problem doing just that.
