Our “Return” To Somerville!

If you’re confused by this title let us explain: The Steve’s ice cream pints you’ve recently taken notice of (and hopefully tried!) in your local Brooklyn specialty stores and Whole Foods stores in Manhattan actually have a little bit of history! Steve’s Ice Cream isn’t so “new” after all. The original Steve’s Ice Cream store opened in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1973 and instantly revolutionized American ice cream by inventing the “Mix-Ins.” The Steve’s you’ve noticed in and around town was brought back by David Stein, who learned to do expert Mix-Ins and how to make Steve’s ice cream by hand when he worked in the original store (see below) while he was in college.

Now that our pints are sold in Brooklyn and Manhattan, we thought, “how great would it be to return to the very place where the original Steve’s opened?”! So last Tuesday we officially brought Steve’s back to Somerville! We were greeted with a most amazing “welcome back” party thrown by our friends and chocolate partner, Taza Chocolate.

We brought the ice cream (and fixings for ice cream and chocolate-centric cocktails) and Taza brought all of the wonderful guests and hosted our return party in their beautiful factory store!

It’s no secret that we only use the best ingredients in our ice cream, which is why Taza’s Stone Ground Organic Chocolate is our perfect chocolatey pair! But it really is a match made in heaven when you even look good together:

Let’s get to the best part: chocolate and ice cream!! We started everyone off with Dark Russian Cocktails, which definitely got the party started If you’re unfamiliar with a Dark Russian (and you probably are since we made this version up), it all starts with a scoop of our Small Batch Bourbon Vanilla Ice Cream…

…which is put in a cocktail shaker with 1.25 oz of Kahlua + 1.25 oz of Dark Taza Chocolate infused vodka + 1 cup of ice and then shaken….

Yes, we did say Dark Taza Chocolate infused vodka. And yes, we can digress and let you know how you can make it at home!

Just take a handle of vodka (pour about 8oz of vodka out of the bottle to make room for the chocolate) and grate 3-4 bars of TAZA 80% Stone Ground Chocolate into the bottle. Let the chocolate infuse in the vodka for 2-3 days, shaking occasionally. Once the infusion is complete, strain the vodka through a sieve and enjoy! Back to the Dark Russian…

After you’ve thoroughly shaken, pour the contents into a glass

and ENJOY!!!

We didn’t stop with Dark Russians. We also made beer floats! We chose Greenport Harbor Brewing’s Black Duck Porter - a beer whose mild hop character and strong notes of cocoa with a hint of coffee. This proved to be a magical pair for the Chocolate*Scotch Coconut Crème (made with Taza Chocolate) that our chef made for this event. We thank our friend Dave at 61 Local in Brooklyn for introducing us to this beer and providing the keg for this party — THANK YOU!!!

Note: When making a beer float at home, pour the beer into the glass and THEN add the ice cream, not vice versa… trust us, we learned the hard way.

In addition to fun beverages, we scooped our Taza flavors:
* Our Mexican Chili Chocolate Ice Cream made with Taza Guajillo Chili Chocolate
* Our Mint Cacao Chip Coconut Crème made with Taza Dark Chocolate Covered Cacao Nibs
* And our Black Gold Ice Cream made with Taza Chocolate Liquor

There was a lot of ice cream consumed that evening…

…but the star of the show was really our Salty Caramel and hot fudge sundaes!

For the hot fudge, we actually recreated the original Steve’s Hot Fudge (circa 1973) using Taza Chocolate - DIVINE! Even when guests were full, no one could turn down one of these sundaes. Could you?

We think the guests were happy we returned…

…especially after our founder, Dave Stein, made the official re-introduction of Steve’s to the Somerville crowd!

It was a fun night…

…among old friends…

…and new friends!

And we made sure that no one left empty handed! Every guest took home their own jar of Steve’s Original Hot Fudge made with Taza!

We just want to give a BIG thanks to Taza for hosting this party. We could not have imagined a more celebratory and welcoming return!

See you again later this summer! PS We love your chocolate!