Havens Down Home Creamery

Hi my name is Benjamin Katz and Trying the two flavors, minty grinch and strawberry. Let's get started with the minty grinch. This is a very easy ice cream to eat. There is a lot more air whipped into it than what I'm used to so it kind of has this light texture on the mouth. It melts quite easily and the taste of the dairy is really doing a lot to improve this mouthfeel. It's creamy, it's light, it's pleasant and it is minty. For an ice cream shop that focuses so much on the quality of its dairy, they're getting their dairy from local farmers. They're doing a very good job to make sure that this ice cream is focused mostly on the flavor of the cream. The mix-ins are these fudgy sponge cake type cookies that are chewy and delicious in the palette but they're very interspersed with the majority of the mass being of the ice cream itself. There's a lot of air whipped into this ice cream so it's melty easily on the tongue and it's giving you this airy feel while the quality of the cream is still allowing that proper coating of the mouth and that authentic dairy feeling. And while mint cookies and cream isn't really a unique or new flavor, I love when ice cream shops add that extra flair to the flavor, right? Minty Grinch. That's a fun flavor name. It is a green mint ice cream with cookies in it so it is giving that Christmasy vibe, It just increases my engagement with the ice cream shop when I see fun, unique ice cream flavor names You can tell I'm having fun with it. Alright, let's move next to the strawberry. It's a very beautiful, pleasant pink strawberry color. It's very fresh strawberry. I'm actually able to chew into the strawberry seeds. On the side it says pureed strawberry and sweet cream, and you are tasting the sweet cream coming through. It's not just a strawberry sorbet, it's a strawberry sorbet with this well-beaten ice cream base and without large chunks of strawberry to ice up and get away the texture. This is a beautiful texture that melts in the mouth perfectly. I don't know if you can see this properly, but it's time to try the Wicked for good flavor combination. It'strawberry's mint and chocolate. What can go wrong? This is delicious. A wonderful flavor combination that, again, I think could make very good promotional material for Wicked. So I decided to do an experiment today. I wanted to walk from downtown to Havens to see how the walking experience would be getting to this ice cream shop in the commercial district about two miles away from the center of town. What I experienced was not a very pleasant commute. Sure, the first half mile out of town was great, and the last half mile to the ice cream shop was great too. There were well-payed sidewalks, good pedestrian access, and not too much road noise to be unpleasant. But for the mile and a half in the middle, it was abysmal. I was walking on a grass shoulder that was barely off the road. I maybe had 10 inches of space before it went to a massive downslope into the trench for water management. And there was no crosswalks, no pedestrian signs or anything. Getting from downtown to the commercial district was impossible to navigate for any accessibility standpoint and risky for even the most seasoned pedestrian. If you're going to come to this ice cream shop, if you're going to come to Havens, you really have to come by car, which is additionally evidenced by the fact there's no after-seating. I'm sitting on a retainer wall, an embankment wall. There is seating indoors, but there's no real accessibility for the outdoor. I find it slightly disappointing when an ice cream shop focuses so much on the local cuisine and ingredients. It doesn't have as much of a focus on engaging with the local population. You have to drive here. You have to get in your car, drive over, and then either sit back in your car to eat or sit in the restaurant with limited seating. There's not as much emphasis on the community as you would hope for ice cream shops getting its ingredients from the community. And that brings me to my closing thoughts. Havens Down Home Creamery is offering delicious scoops of ice cream for a fair price. I got this two scoop for six and a half dollars and it was a hefty portion of ice cream. It's well mixed, the texture is great, the flavor of the cream is wonderful, the variety of flavors is good too. I would just want a bit more of a connection to the community, a bit more walking access, maybe some outdoor seating. Put a bench on the parking lot. You don't have to do much. We are away from the main road so there's not too much road noise. It's a very peaceful and pleasant experience sitting outside looking at the nature. Except for the traffic supply right behind me, there's a decent amount of it. If you're in Lusdale, Mississippi, this is practically speaking the only viable option for a good ice cream. If you're passing through Mississippi, I would absolutely recommend stopping by Havens Down Home Creamery. But you will have to come by car and that is honestly the only downside I can think of this otherwise spectacular ice cream shop. If you com for more on the journey. Thank you.