You’re closing!? I can’t bear to look!
You won’t be open until the spring!? I’m not listening, I can’t hear this!
It’s over? No more ice cream!? Don’t say such things!
I can’t hear such things! We finally reached the end of our journey. Our has finally come to a close. With the final three flavors to try at , it seemed appropriate to have Wyandotte Mayor Joseph Peterson join us for this momentous event. But our last tasting almost never happened.
I had scheduled the tasting with the mayor weeks in advance. Everything was all set and then I saw on Facebook that Twist N Shout was closing for the season two weeks earlier than I had anticipated. No! This can’t be! We still had three flavors left to try! Luckily, the mayor was able to change his schedule and meet us at noon on the last day of their season, Sept. 24.
So we went ahead and booked it not realizing that Twist N Shout didn’t open until 3 p.m. Oh man, I should have thought this through. My ice cream finale was falling apart at an exponential rate. But alas, the great staff at Twist N Shout agreed to open early for us, preventing me from asking the mayor to change his schedule yet again. Finally, everything was in place.
When we pulled up and got out of the car, there was a sense of finality in the air. It was cool out, but the sky was blue and the sun felt warm on my face. It was the beginning of a perfect fall day. It really was perfect. We were officially saying goodbye to summer by closing the Twist N Shout adventure, but saying hello to fall with a beautiful, sunny fall day.
While workers made the ice cream for us, we discussed some of the previous flavors–the highs, the lows and the surprises. And then, they brought out the last three flavors–peach, black cherry and strawberry. The mayor chose black cherry, Aya picked strawberry and I got stuck with peach.
We normally do our tasting quietly off to the side by ourselves, but this time, we had an audience. There were five or six employees there, along with the two owners, Larry and Kathy Spiers (whom I had never met before). The pressure was on. Was I sweating because I was nervous or because of the sun?
Strawberry
This is one of the most typical ice cream flavors. It’s always in the Neapolitan trio of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. I’m actually surprised that no one selected it before and it made it to the end. Would it live up to the high ratings the and got, though? Sometimes it’s good to save the best for last. I really loved this strawberry and gave it 5 plastic spoons! However, Aya and the mayor thought it lacked that extra oomph and gave it 4.5 plastic spoons.
Peach
I wasn’t expecting this to be that great. I thought it would be weak in its intensity and be boring. Plus, I’m not a huge fan of peaches. I like them, but I don’t love them. And as we’ve seen through this whole series, personal preference plays into the mix a whole bunch. But, it did have a lot of flavor. It did have intensity. It did taste like peach, or at least it tasted like peach-flavored things. The mayor and I gave it 4 spoons, while Aya gave it 3. I also learned that if a flavor isn’t as strong as you like it, just ask them to make it stronger and they can do that.
Black Cherry
I was worried there would be no difference between black cherry and . I got them so confused so many times when looking at the menu. But they are very different. In my opinion, blackberry was much better. But black cherry did indeed taste like black cherry. Aya gave it 3 spoons and I gave it 4 spoons. This was the mayor’s favorite. He liked this more than the strawberry and gave it 5 spoons! He also said that when he comes back next season, he would order this instead of his usual chocolate. That was until Larry had him try the strawberry malt shake. After he tried that, he declared, “This is the mayor’s choice!” And once more before he left, he reminded the staff: “Don’t forget. The strawberry malt shake is the mayor’s choice.”
Well folks, we did it! at Twist N Shout. While this last tasting did not include , , , or , it did have three great flavors and two 5-plastic-spoon ratings!
Check back tomorrow for my final thoughts and to see what I learned from this project. And maybe, just maybe, we all learned a thing or two.
