News

'Our State' devotes 7-page spread to Hendersonville Ice Cream Trail

By CRAIG DISTL, VisitHendersonville.com, Published: June 11, 2024

Our State editor-in-chief Elizabeth Hudson didn’t have far to go when searching for a writer to get the scoop on the Hendersonville Ice Cream Trail. She found a willing volunteer at the desk closest to her office.

Katie King, a writer with a sweet tooth who just happens to be the magazine’s managing editor, was the perfect choice. King grew up in Henderson County and, along with her younger sister, never missed an opportunity to consume ice cream.

So last summer, solely in pursuit of journalistic excellence, King returned home to sample as many flavors as her stomach would allow at the trail’s 13 stops. The result? A story about the tasty tidbits she encountered graces the July cover of North Carolina’s beloved magazine.

The issue goes in the mail this week to nearly 200,000 subscribers and will be available on newsstands at month’s end. The cover features a tantalizing bowl of strawberry ice cream, the most popular of the freshly made flavors at McConnell Farms.

Early in the article, King makes sure to justify her ice cream bona fides. She says her family’s freezer was always stocked with at least two half gallons of ice cream, and it was customary for the two siblings to eat a bowl after school and another just before bed. Plus, they found other ways to indulge:

“We’d go out for ice cream as a special treat: Straight A’s? Ice cream. Post-hike? Ice cream. Scored a goal in soccer? Ice cream,” she writes. “All of this to say: We love ice cream. So, too, it turns out, does my hometown of Hendersonville.”

The story touches on the numerous flavors at Fletcher’s Baabals Ice Cream Shoppe, how the recipe for a popular ice cream from a small town in Ireland found its way to downtown Hendersonville, and why certain days bring multigenerational ice cream lovers to Piggy’s Ice Cream.

We learn that King’s parents are ice cream connoisseurs, too, and she confesses the family’s ice cream shop of choice was always Piggy’s, except they never called it that.

“It was always ‘the place with the animals on the roof,’ said in one quick breath,” she explains. “We would take our cake cones — mint chocolate chip for me, chocolate for my sister — and search for interesting license plates or signs on the walls, or sit in the rocking chairs out front.”

As she weaves her way along the trail, the graduate of West Henderson High and the University of North Carolina surmises that maybe her family was drawn to Henderson County all those years ago because they knew it would become the “unofficial ice cream capital of North Carolina.” Or, “maybe all of those ice cream shops popped up because they knew that my family could single-handedly support their business if it came down to it.”

But as much as she wanted to believe that, in the end she admits it probably has more to do with what’s printed on a sign above the cash register at Baabals: “You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy ice cream and that’s kind of the same thing.”

The five-page story is followed by a two-page illustrated guide to all 13 locations on the trail. There’s also a separate story about McConnell Farms’ quarter century of making ice cream.

Our State is even sponsoring a celebration of the Hendersonville Ice Cream Trail. It takes place Saturday, June 29, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at McConnell Farms. Festivities include ice cream-making demonstrations and the opportunity to meet and greet the story’s author.

All guests receive a map detailing the 13 trail stops, along with complimentary samples of McConnell Farms’ strawberry ice cream, its most popular flavor.

Although the celebration is free to attend, advance registration is required. For more details, visit: https://www.ourstate.com/trips/hendersonville-ice-cream-trail-celebration/