VERMILION COUNTY — About a week ago, a dreamy memory materialized into something sweet: creamy vanilla frozen custard with caramel, pecans, a little fudge and a bright red cherry on top.

That turtle sundae was a tangible reminder. When I smell that certain fresh and airy scent of frozen custard, my senses take me back to an old sweet spot in DeKalb: Ollie’s Frozen Custard.

When I was younger, my mom and I used to walk to Ollie’s often. Conveniently, the shop was situated just a couple of blocks from our house.

The parlor was beige with blue-green trim, its yellow neon lights glowing at night. Then, there was the signature Ollie’s man with his mustache, perched at the top right-hand corner of the pint-sized building.

My mom and I would sit down and enjoy, digging into our sundaes. I never used to eat the cherry on top, but some of my tastes have changed.

What hasn’t changed is the feeling I get when I eat Ollie’s — a feeling of nostalgia, excitement and contentment.

My trip to Ollie’s last week was the poignant cherry-on-top of a flavorful ice cream tour Mary Wicoff and I started in Vermilion County on July 5.

We found the area full of rich tradition and wonderful memories centered on a common bond: a love for ice cream. Vermilion County and Indiana residents readily admit how they take advantage of the numerous ice cream and frozen custard shops sprinkled throughout the area.

Friends of our Facebook page raved about the area’s numerous treasures:

--Kimberly Bowman Seldomridge said, “No place is better than Hershey’s in Veedersburg!”

--Amy Faltraco said, “I was born in Danville and have been back to visit the past 25 years. I love Dairy Barn in (Hillery). It’s a favorite of all time. Great food and great memories. I had to take my kids there to share it with them!”

--Randy Hurt also said of Dairy Barn, “Best ice cream all around these parts!”

--Keri Townsend said, “The Sundae Shoppe (in Covington, Ind.) is awesome! Great ice cream, food and company! You won’t find a better place!”

--Karen Miller said, “You have to have Custard Cup cold fudge. I have lived in (South Carolina) for years but still can taste that cold fudge. I would give anything to have some.”

--Erin Barnes said of Mike’s Chill in Tilton, “(I don’t know) what makes the lemon so good ... but it’s delicious! I love it.”

With the opinions of readers fueling our purchases, our tour took us to four random shops. We interviewed owners and managers. We also solicited the help of taste testers for some unbiased opinions.

So, savor the subtleties we bit, sipped and slurped during our ice cream quest. We relished every sweet moment.

Mike’s Chill

2012 Georgetown Road, Tilton

Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. every day

Season: second week of March through second or third week of September

We grilled manager Vickie Miethe about Mike’s Chill, not to be confused with Mike’s Grill.

Commercial-News: Can you give a brief history of the shop?

Vickie Miethe: My father (Oren Cunningham) started it. It opened in 1984. He still owns it. I just help him run it. Where the Chill is now used to be my father’s and our yard. So when we left, he decided to put an ice cream shop there.

C-N: What is your most popular flavor? How many do you offer?

Miethe: Our most popular item is the chiller. It’s like a Dairy Queen Blizzard with the candy. We offer chocolate, vanilla, lemon, twist and switch between strawberry and raspberry.

C-N: What makes your ice cream so special?

Miethe: It’s just good ice cream. We buy the mix, and then it goes into a machine, which hardens the ice cream. It’s soft-serve.

C-N: How often do you eat your own ice cream?

Miethe: Well, I’d like to have it all the time, but I can’t. I have it twice a week. My dad has it every night. He likes his ice cream.

C-N: What attracts people to your ice cream shop?

Miethe: It’s kind of like a tradition here in Tilton. The drive-through really helps because a lot of people don’t want to get out of their car.

C-N: Do you make healthy ice cream?

Miethe: … Our ice cream is supposed to be 96 percent fat free. We don’t have sugar free (options). Just eat a little, and it shouldn’t hurt you that much.

Another interesting fact: Miethe is the sole owner of Mike’s Grill next door, which she bought from her dad in 1999.

The Test — Mike’s Chill

Taste tester Chaunice “Neicey” Sherfield, 13, offered her short and sweet insights. She was a little nervous and requested to view the questions beforehand.

Commercial-News: What did you order? What was in it?

Neicey: A fudge sundae (with vanilla ice cream).

C-N: How would you rate this ice cream on a scale of 1-10?

Neicey: Nine. Because it’s a lot of chocolate ...

C-N: Describe its properties.

Neicey: It’s creamy. It’s light. It melts easy.

C-N: Sweetness factor — Is it a little sweet, just enough sweet, incredibly sweet or over-the top, probably-will-have-cavities-after-this-one, sweet?

Neicey: I will get a cavity.

C-N: Anything that you like in particular about this ice cream?

Neicey: I like it. It’s just a lot of chocolate in it.

Aside: Is too much chocolate such a bad thing?

The Dairy Barn

103 N. North St./Henning Road, Hillery

Hours: 2-9:30 p.m. every day

Season: April 1 through third Saturday in September

Owner Carey Cundiff opened the shop early for us and dished out some flavorful tidbits.

Commercial-News: Can you give a brief history of the shop?

Cundiff: It’s been here since 1981 — 32 seasons now. My father-in-law (Joe Leonard) started it in 1981. He had it for six years. He sold it to my brother. My brother had it for 12 years. He sold it to me. My wife’s dad is the one that used to sit out in the swing and look and see the cars and think, this would be the perfect place for an ice cream store.

C-N: How do you make your ice cream?

Cundiff: We buy the (hand-dipped flavors) from a company in Chicago. The soft-serve is made in our machinery. It’s a liquid mix that freezes in our machines.

C-N: What is your most popular flavor?

Cundiff: Lemon is the most popular (hand-dipped) flavor. (We sell) twice as much lemon as anything else. Vanilla is most popular with the hot fudge, caramel and pecans.

C-N: What makes your ice cream so special?

Cundiff: Depending on how much milk fat is in it … changes the taste drastically. And we don’t go with a real high milk fat. It’s not really what we call a low fat, but … it’s a much lower fat than a lot of your other ice creams are. It tastes more refreshing. It’s not as lardy. And actually, our chocolate’s even lower in fat than the vanilla.

C-N: How often do you eat your own ice cream?

Cundiff: We go to the freezer and open it up (when we close for the day), and we get to eat whatever the mistakes were for that day. So if we got a good crew, there’s not much in there. If we had a crew that had a rough day, there’s a lot to choose from. So sometimes you can tell by our weight whether or not we’re having a rough day or not.

C-N: What is your weirdest ice cream flavor?

Cundiff: Bubble gum is probably the strangest one.

C-N: What makes your ice cream shop unique?

Cundiff: Well, I think being just out here on the edge of town is nice. It’s a little bit quieter. We’ve got a nice area for them to sit out there and relax — a lot of grandparents out here with their grandkids. We’re known for our serving portions to be big.

Other interesting facts:

--The Dairy Barn’s drive-thru is a mainstay when it gets hot. The drive-through was not originally part of the shop.

--The shop sells low-sugar ice cream in three flavors and low-fat yogurt in three flavors.

The Test — The Dairy Barn

Taste testers Chaunice “Neicey” Sherfield, 13, and Anthony Cooper, 14, gave their reviews.

Commercial-News: What did you order? What was in it?

Neicey: Turtle sundae — pecans, caramel, fudge and vanilla ice cream.

Anthony: I had a brownie sundae. I had a cherry, whipped cream, fudge, brownie, caramel and some ice cream.

C-N: How would you rate this ice cream on a scale of 1-10?

Neicey: 10, because it was awesome.

Anthony: 11, ’cause it was good. It was better than Dairy Queen, actually.

C-N: Describe its properties.

Neicey: It was fresh. It was creamy. And it was real white.

Anthony: It was creamy. It was cold. It was fresh.

C-N: Anything that you like in particular about this ice cream?

Neicey: The caramel and the fudge. It wasn’t sloppy. It looked good.

Anthony: The brownies, ’cause I like brownies, and I had a taste for brownies, too. They were soft. They were rich and chocolaty.

 

The Sundae Shoppe

216 Fourth St., Covington, Ind.

Hours: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. EDT Monday through Saturday

Season: April through first Saturday in October

Owner Coletta Chapman chatted with us about the old-fashioned parlor.

Commercial-News: Can you give a brief history of the shop?

Chapman: It was only 6 months old when we got it. My family bought it, changed it around a little bit. We’ve had it for almost nine years.

C-N: What is your most popular flavor?

Chapman: The hand-dipped, probably caramel cone or mint chocolate chip. And chocolate peanut butter.

C-N: What makes your ice cream so special?

Chapman: Our ice cream is really creamy. It’s very smooth. It’s just good quality ice cream. We get it from Chicago. A specialty is our lemon soft-serve.

C-N: How often do you eat your own ice cream?

Chapman: Maybe once a day. I might eat a little bit of vanilla with caramel. I was never a big ice cream eater. My kids are.

C-N: What attracts people to your ice cream shop?

Chapman: It’s at a good location, right on the corner. We have a lot of neat customers. They’re like family, too. Everybody just says they feel very comfortable here. When they leave, they remember us.

C-N: Do you make healthy ice cream?

Chapman: For diabetics, we have a no-sugar fudge swirl.

Another interesting fact: The small “juke box” in the ice cream shop is not a real juke box. That hasn’t stopped some customers from getting quarters stuck in it, though.

The Test — The Sundae Shoppe

Rodney and Donna Prather, of Perrysville, Ind., brought their 4-year-old granddaughter, Chloe, in for a scoop of chocolate ice cream. She’s the daughter of John and Christy Prather of Danville.

Commercial-News: What do you like about the ice cream?

Chloe: It tastes really good.

C-N: How would you rate this ice cream on a scale of 1-10?

Chloe: (After explaining what “one” meant and what “10” meant, Chloe finally settled on 10.)

Also, Chloe thought the ice cream was sweet, and it was just good.

The Prathers also enjoyed their chocolate and butter pecan scoops, and reminisced about a shop that used to be in Perrysville a long time ago.

Andi Mae’s

17143 E. 2750 North Road.

Hours: 2-9 p.m. every day

Season: March to mid-October

Owner Jill Cunningham gave us the lowdown on her newly opened store.

Commercial-News: Can you give a brief history of the shop?

Cunningham: We opened last year in mid-September and were open for two months. Then we opened March 23 of this year. It was something I dreamed about doing for a long time. I finally got to the point in my life where I could do it.

C-N: What is your most popular flavor? How many do you offer?

Cunningham: Zanzibar chocolate. And Coconut Almond Bliss is right up there, too. Right now I have about 35 hand-dipped flavors; chocolate, vanilla and twist on soft-serve.

C-N: What makes your ice cream so special?

Cunningham: Because it’s a super premium ice cream, and that means it’s 14 percent butterfat. It is a lot of butter fat.

C-N: How often do you eat your own ice cream?

Cunningham: I have some just about everyday.

C-N: What attracts people to your ice cream shop?

Cunningham: It’s just something unique for Bismarck. There’s never been anything like this around here before.

C-N: What’s your weirdest ice cream flavor?

Cunningham: Scotch ale caramel crunch — it’s a beer-flavored ice cream with caramel and pieces of Heath.

Other interesting facts:

--Cunningham did nine months of research before deciding what brand of ice cream to sell.

--Andi Mae’s offers two sugar-free flavors — Pomberry Cascade and Chocolate Fudge Ripple. It also offers two lactose-free Italian ice flavors — cherry and blue raspberry.

The Test — Andi Mae’s

The testers were Noah Smith, 3, and Hannah Smith, 7, children of Ryan and April Smith of Bismarck.

Commercial-News: How much experience do you have testing ice cream flavors?

April Smith: We’ve been here a few times.

C-N: What did you order?

Noah and Hannah: Both ordered a scoop of cotton candy.

Smith: Normally, we stick with vanilla and chocolate but decided to try another flavor.

C-N: Describe its taste.

Hannah: It’s a little sweet. Cold.

Both children said it does taste like cotton candy.

C-N: How would you rate this ice cream on a scale of 1-10?

Both: Ten. “I like it,” Hannah said. Noah nodded in agreement.

C-N reporter Mary Wicoff contributed to this article.