Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Food & Drink

JB’s Proof Answers Our Prayers with Alcoholic Ice Cream

Cator Sparks
By

JB's Alcoholic Ice Cream PROOF Chocolate Bourbon
I am lucky enough to live right across the street from an awesome deli. Jamal, who runs Charlie’s Deli on Spring in Charleston, South Carolina. He stocks his store with a huge wine and beer selection and well, that’s the main draw for us. Plus Jamal is just awesome to hang out with. So the day he told me he was getting in some alcoholic ice cream I almost dropped my six pack. I couldn’t believe my ears. How can ice cream be alcoholic? We all know you can’t freeze alcohol. I could barely contain my wonder.

Days later I walked in for a white wine to go with the fish we were grilling when before my eyes was a little ice cream freezer emblazoned with the name JB’s Proof, Alcoholic Ice Cream. I lost all train of thought and opened the treasure chest of wonder and picked out Vanilla Bourbon and Mocha Chocolate Moonshine. Sprinting home with my booty I ripped the lids off of both to explore this fantasy food concept. I was not disappointed. First of all, my biggest pet peeve with ice cream is, well it is usually frozen solid. I end up bending a spoon or having to let it sit for minutes on end (gasp) before I can scoop out a pea sized bite. Or you push so hard to make a dent and a giant flake of ice cream goes flying across the room onto the wall. Not with JB’s. Since there is alcohol in them there tubs, a full 7% alcohol by volume for each serving, the ice cream is more like a gelato, smooth and creamy.

Related Videos

Ours never made it to a bowl. What’s the point? We just scooped out bite after bite until we realized we were buzzed and put it away. I haven’t slept that well in ages. Oh, and who needs dinner?

Related

Overjoyed to have discovered this frozen treat, Jamal put me in touch with the owner of the company. I gave Jennifer Randall Collins a ring to hear how it began and where it’s going.

JB's Alcoholic Ice Cream PROOF Strawberry Moonshine

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I grew up in a small town called Mount Sterling in Kentucky that you have probably never heard of. We grew up pretty poor but I managed to parlay my athletic ability into a basketball scholarship and signed with the University of South Carolina. Later I started a small political consulting firm before I jumped on the alcoholic ice cream party train.

How did you find JB Proof?

When I was back in Kentucky I met the inventor of our product and got appointed CEO. We moved headquarters to Columbia, SC for licensing reasons. He loved his grandmother’s custard pie and thought it would taste even better as an ice cream flavor.  Of course, there should be some bourbon in it because, well, it’s Kentucky. He used to give out samples out of the back of his old Jeep and people would give him their honest opinion and by 2014 he had perfected freezing alcohol in ice cream. Now we are looking at expansion across the South, Vegas and even internationally.  We are a certified South Carolina product and we partnered with the department of agriculture.  I like to say JB’s was ‘Conceived in Kentucky and born in South Carolina!’ We sold our first tub on Thanksgiving week of 2015.

Where is JB?

He is retired but we look to him for input when exploring other flavors.

When I met him he had been messing with the family recipe for years but hadn’t been able to get it to market.  So with his blessing, I re-launched the product and got it to the retail market.

Have y’all thought about partnering with brands like Four Roses, Sailor Jerry, and others?

We would love to one day! Currently, we use full strength rum, bourbon, moonshine, tequila and whiskey in every batch. It is not limited to one type of alcohol.

We have the process down and they all freeze equally.

Can you buy online?

Not yet. We are only sold in South Carolina now. We are exploring e-commerce and hope to be live soon. Check out our site for where you can find us!

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Is erythritol harmful? What a dietitian says new data means for your Keto diet
Erythritol is common in many keto foods - what does that mean for your health?
erythritol in keto diet advice

While sugar substitutes have been around for more than a century, they didn't really become mainstream here in the United States until around the mid-70s. According to Carolyn De La Pena, professor of American Studies at UC Davis and author of Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda, between 1975 and 1984, Americans increased their consumption of artificial sweeteners by 150 percent. This timeline makes sense when you take into account that the late seventies coincided with the start of our crazed diet culture and the revolving door of fad diets.
One such diet that doesn't seem to be going anywhere, however, is the Keto diet. Still hugely popular among Americans trying to shed a few pounds, Keto focuses heavily on limited or no carbohydrates. Because sugar contains carbohydrates, followers of Keto have turned to artificial sweeteners to satisfy those late-night cravings - sweeteners that, more often than not, contain erythritol. Erythritol in particular has become hugely popular because it's much better for baking than other sugar substitutes, has less of an artificial flavor, and will keep the eater in Ketosis, which is key for losing weight on the Keto diet.
A new study has made waves recently because its findings indicate there's a link between erythritol and higher rates of heart attack and stroke (though the study did note that only an association was found — not causation. So should you be worried?
We asked Dan LeMoine, RD, the award-winning author of Fear No Food and the Clinical Director at Phoenix-based Re:vitalize Nutrition, what he had to say about erythritol, including its benefits and potential health risks. "Artificial sweeteners are still sweeteners. While many are non-nutritive or zero-calorie, we tend to view them similarly as we do regular sweeteners or sugars — moderation is key. While many have amazing implications on weight loss – being low to no-calorie options and having little impact on blood sugar, some have their downside," he says.

While some of that sugar substitution has been good for waistlines and health issues that come from obesity, it seems to be causing more and more concern when it comes to other potential health issues. "For example," says LeMoine, "some research indicates the popular sweeteners stevia may have negative effects on the gut microbiome. And the recent study showing correlation between the sugar alcohol, erythritol, and heart attack and stroke."

Read more
The Borg drink is a viral Gen-Z favorite that’s really not all that new
Sorry, kiddos. "Borg" has been around for a while. We just call it something else.
borg drink recipe

Every new generation thinks they've invented the wheel when it comes to anything trendy. We're sorry to say, Gen-Z, but "flared leggings" are called yoga pants, most of us were using flip phones before you were born, and don't even think about talking to us about pop punk unless you know who Billie Joe Armstrong is.
When it comes to drinks, most generations have a hallmark party beverage that defines their college years, holding the power to flood them with a rush of nausea and fuzzy memories even decades later. For Gen-Z, that drink is called "Borg." What they haven't realized yet, though, is that this falsely fruity concoction has been around for years under the name "Jungle Juice."
While Jungle Juice was originally invented by U.S. soldiers during the Second World War, it was Millenials who made it the truly trashy, hangover-inducing party swill it is. Most stereotypically mixed in a large bucket or something else that can be found in a dorm garage, Jungle Juice is a mixture of vodka and a cheap, fruity mixer such as Kool-Aid. Naturally, there aren't any hard and fast recipe rules, but that's the usual gist of Jungle Juice.
The Gen-Z twist, Borg, does have some clever upgrades, and for that, we give them due credit. Firstly, the rather gross-sounding name is actually a witty acronym for "Black Out Rage Gallon." We love that there's no beating around the bush with this generation. They know how to call a spade a spade. Second, unlike the communal trough that's used to dole out Jungle Juice, Borg is made and served in individual plastic jugs, cutting down on germ spread. We can appreciate that growing up in the days of COVID has made for some much healthier thinking. We also love that Borg can be capped, making it much more difficult for potential predators to tamper with a drink.
Of course, the optional addition of new ingredients like Liquid IV also help to curb the hangover that will undoubtedly come with drinking vodka from a plastic jug. That sure would have been nice back in the day.

Borg drink recipe

Read more
Egg nutrition: Should you eat the whole egg or stick to egg whites?
Are eggs good for you?
White eggs in an egg carton.

There's probably no food product that science has gone back and forth on more than the egg. We know it's delicious. We know it makes a great breakfast food, whether you're scrambling up eggs, perfecting that omelet, or eating them hard-boiled (and that's just scratching the surface of egg-related recipes. But should you eat the whole egg, or just the egg white?

Decades ago, when housewives made gigantic stacks of pancakes for the family every weekday morning (at least, that's what TV told us happened) it was an absolute given that you ate both the egg white and the egg yolk. But then people began worrying about their high saturated fat and cholesterol content — and thus began the debate about egg nutrition, and whether it was healthier to eat the whole egg or just the egg white. Which is it? Here's what you need to know.
Are eggs good for you?

Read more