Taking the High Road

Today's staycation activity was visiting the High Road Craft ice cream factory store! It's a pretty small operation, but they open up on Saturdays for tasting and a tour of the kitchen. Aside from the delicious ice cream, the best part is that it's free!

It's in the back of a mostly empty corporate park in Chamblee, so we weren't quite sure what we were getting into when we showed up. We tried to go in the door marked "Rock Star Entrance" (since clearly we are), but it turns out that was the kitchen! Oops.

One of their kind kitchen staff members directed us to the tasting room. They have a selection of flavors to taste every Saturday, along with a board of many, many more that are for sale by the pint.

We tasted Vanilla Coke Float (my favorite - vanilla with a swirl of Coke sorbet!), Greek blueberry yogurt gelato (Andrew's favorite), strawberry rhubarb (really good), and fresh melon sorbet (a nice palate cleanser). I should have taken a photo of the "for sale" board, because they had so many that sounded amazing! Red Berries and Prosecco sorbet, Brown Butter Praline, Bourbon Burnt Sugar, and the list went on...

After we tasted, it was time for the tour. Hairnets required. (Verrrry fashionable.)

The co-founder of High Road, Nicki, led our tour. We saw the pasteurization room (and a vat of sweet cream base), the recipe board for today's batch, and the ice cream makin' line from the mixers to the filling station to the freezers. You'd never know it now, but the whole place used to be a Church's Chicken testing kitchen!

She explained how they started small by doing chef-to-chef delivery. Her husband is a chef, and he started creating gourmet ice cream to order for chefs in Atlanta restaurants. Then they expanded to Whole Foods and Fresh Market, and most recently they got into Harris Teeter.

And we could see why! The ice cream was really creative and delicious, and the people working there were so nice and enthusiastic. We were planning to stop for lunch after (and it's not very close to home anyway), so we didn't buy any at the factory store. But we definitely stopped at the Fresh Market to get some back in town! There's a more limited selection in stores, so next time we'll be prepared to make a trip up to buy some direct from the source.

Lunch was fun too - Chuy's in Dunwoody. I believe I could have eaten just chips and their creamy jalapeno dip for my whole lunch.

We'd definitely recommend a Saturday trip up to High Road. And take a cooler. :)