J.P. Licks

Review by: billyboy

I miss many things about living in Boston, and the sheer abundance of great, independent ice cream shops is one of them. J.P. Licks has always been near the top of my list. I have been indulging in ice cream here for the past 11 years, the first six when I lived in Boston and for the past five every time I come to visit. After reading the Digest blog from Stephen, Chris, and Amy’s New England Ice Cream Tour, I was craving it on my most recent visit to Beantown.

I highly recommend the Peanut Butter Ripple: thick and creamy with a devilishly thick ribbon of peanut butter throughout. Also recommended: Maple Butter Walnut, with an assertive maple flavor and crunchy nuts. I opted for a small Peanut Butter Ripple with hot fudge. The fudge is rich, thick, warm, and gooey. It does get thicker as it cools and becomes more like a ganache; it has a delightfully bittersweet taste that really speaks to me. This ice cream is rich and creamy, and you’ll feel a bit like a gastronomical miner every time you strike a thick vein of sticky peanut butter. Obviously, there is lots of sugar in all of this, but at no point does it obscure the wonderful flavors going on; I feel that it actually brings them out.

In a nod to the Red Sox, they used to have a Cherry Garciaparra flavor, which has been crossed out to read Cherry Ortiz! Brookline is a great little village and the staff here has always been wonderful to me. It’s been a part of some happy memories for me, and I think many others too, as a lot of locals stop in for a cup or cone to go and stroll through the village on a lazy weekend afternoon or warm summer’s evening.

What To Eat

Mint Chip Ice Cream

DISH
Banana Oreo Ice Cream

DISH
Black Raspberry Ice Cream

DISH
Vanilla Ice Cream

DISH
Hot Fudge Sauce

DISH

J.P. Licks Recipes

Discuss

What do you think of J.P. Licks?

One Response to “J.P. Licks”

Tristan Snell

September 8th, 2008

J.P. Licks really doesn’t belong on Roadfood.com. It’s a Boston-area chain and a bit of an overrated one at that. The ice cream’s pretty good, but the stores themselves aren’t that interesting — and they’re certainly not a destination for anyone visiting New England. For one thing, the Brookline branch isn’t even the real one: the chain is called J.P. Licks because the original and largest location is in J.P., Jamaica Plain. At the very least, that should be the location here.

If there’s going to be a Boston-area outpost of a Masschusetts ice cream chain here, it should be the Herrell’s in Harvard Square in Cambridge. It’s a local institution and a unique location — you can have their terrific ice cream in a room made inside an old vault.

And if you REALLY want good ice cream in the Boston area, it has to be Toscanini’s in Central Square, also in Cambridge. It is the very best ice cream in town — plus they have wonderful brunch on the weekends.

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