Signature ice cream of every state

Ice cream lovers from all over make the trek to Peach Park in Clanton, Ala., for their peach ice cream made from the sweetest local fruit. If you visit, be sure to hold your ice cream in your hand though, as it is illegal to hold an ice cream come in your back pocket in Alabama.

In Fairbanks, Hot Licks cranks out an Alaskan blueberry ice cream made from sweet berries picked from the wild interior. 

The Toffee Banofi sundae at Sweet Republic has everyone from locals to Food Network stars singing its praises, and with good reason. Two scoops of vanilla, almond toffee brittle, fresh bananas, whipped cream and salted caramel sauce served in a waffle bowl, it's pure summer ice cream excess.

Loblolly Creamery in Little Rock is known for its version of standard flavors like buttermilk, honey green tea and a decadent bourbon pecan, but it's the revolving specialty limited treats that keep the locals coming back, like sour apple sorbet topped with a rich caramel sauce to create a caramel apple iced delight. 

Born in Santa Barbara and taking the rest of the state by storm, McConnell's Fine Ice Creams counts in its creations a churros con leche ice cream, and in true Californian style, it's made from milk that comes from grass-fed cows, organic cage-free eggs and the sweet cinnamon treat, churros. Want some extra crunch? Order it with the housemade corn flakes.

Smokey, spicy and rich come together in a perfect marriage of this Colorado treat, adobo chocolate ice cream from Sweet Cow. Adobo chilies in chipotle sauce give depth to Dutch chocolate on its cones, including a salted pretzel cone for those who prefer savory to sweet. 

With seasonal flavors like pumpkin and apple spice, Rich Farm Ice Cream in Connecticut hits all the true New England taste profiles, but it's the signature spiced ice cream that is truly unique to the Nutmeg State. 

You can't visit a farm without getting a little dirty, and at Woodside Farm Creamery, the purveyors make sure the grit (ground-up cookies) and the worms (gummy-style) make it right onto your cone. Be sure to check out this award-winning shop's other signature flavor, "motor oil," with a green caramel swirl. 

While it's tempting to name "marionberry" the official ice cream of the district, Ice Cream Jubilee's raspberry rose seems much more fitting for our nation's capital. 

Down in Miami's Little Havana you'll find the Azucar Ice Cream Co. cranking out the flavors of the Caribbean, like sweet plantain, café con leche, key lime and even avocado. But there is one flavor that makes us think of Florida above all others: guava.

At Leopold's Ice Cream in Savannah the shop has been dishing on dessert for nearly a century, including a butter pecan ice cream made with real Georgia pecans. 

Coffee ice cream with coconut flakes, macadamia nuts and chocolate; even if you didn't know the name of Lappert's popular ice cream, Kauai Pie, you'd know the ingredients are pure Hawaii.

Goody’s Soda Fountain & Candy Store has been a Boise favorite for years, and few things recall a warm night, a light breeze and twilight reaching far beyond bedtime like a homemade waffle cone filled to the brim with summery strawberry ice cream.

You don't have to remind us that Chicago, in fact the entire state, has a late last call, but just in case you forgot, the Lakeview Barhopper — Dutch chocolate blended with whiskey — at Bobtail Ice Cream invites you in to sit down and have a lick (and a sip). 

Just because The Chocolate Moose in Bloomington has been scooping up ice cream since 1933 doesn't mean Indiana's ice cream tastes are also frozen in time. The vegan menu isn't just sorbets and fruit whips; it also includes the glorious chocolate chip cookie "ice cream" for frozen fans who avoid dairy. 

If there is anything Iowans know, it's ice cream, and one of the largest purveyors of frozen treats in the country, Blue Bunny Ice Cream, hails from the hamlet of Le Mars just outside of Sioux City. And while it does have a national presence, Blue Bunny still has an ice cream parlor in town where you can try its signature sweet Bunny Tracks: vanilla ice cream with caramel and fudge swirls, chocolate-covered peanuts and peanut butter-filled chocolate bunnies.

Kansas is more than just corn, although Glacé Artisan Ice Cream does occasionally make a corn ice cream. It also makes a sophisticated rose petal pistachio ice cream befitting the Paris of the Plains, Kansas City.  

At The Comfy Cow, the ice cream makers take handmade bourbon balls made with Old Forester and crank them into fresh batches of ice cream — along with another pour of bourbon — into their Kentucky Derby-themed ice cream. 

At the Creole Creamery the flavors are ever-changing, but they are always very distinctly Louisianan: lavender honey, a duck fat caramel sauce, champagne with candied violets — it even has King Cake ice cream for Mardi Gras. But what speaks out to southern charm and hospitality? Magnolia flower ice cream with its light, sweet fragrance.  

President Obama may have made Mt. Desert Island Ice Cream's blueberry basil sorbet famous with a visit, but it's the blueberry ice cream that speaks to the entire state. Feeling a little more seaworthy? It also makes a Maine Sea Salt flavor. 

For more than 90 years, University of Maryland students have been able to grab a frozen treat on campus at "The Dairy" to take a break from the stress of finals. Fear the Turtle features vanilla ice cream with a swirl of white chocolate truffle, caramel, salted pecans and, just for good measure, triple sec.

At Herrell's there is a library of more than 300 ice cream recipes at your disposal so it can be a difficult decision which flavor to pick, but nothing says Massachusetts like fall flavors, and the Thanksgiving ice cream of sage, cranberries and salted pecans fits the bill perfectly. Want a second scoop? Apple cider ice cream is welcome no matter how chilly the night.

Just named the best ice cream shop in the country, Moomer's in Traverse City makes use of one of Michigan's best crops, cherries. Cherries Moobilee is a black cherry ice cream with chocolate fudge, brownies and, of course, black cherries. 

Nelson's in Stillwater is known for being traditional — traditionally large portions. (Pictured here is the "kid's" size!) But just because it goes big doesn't know it sacrifices on flavor. The Minnesota-perfect snowflake ice cream is a pistachio ice cream with a flurry of white chocolate-covered almonds and white chocolate chunks.

In the sorghum-sweetened states, sweet sorghum syrup (locally called "sorghum molasses") is used in place of honey or traditional molasses on everything from pancakes to biscuits. At Ices Plain and Fancy in St. Louis, the purveyors whip up their sorghum molasses ice cream with liquid nitrogen and then top it with a maple cotton candy puff.

Mississippi is more than people loading chocolate on chocolate and calling it mud; it's also a great state for doughnuts. At Area 51 in Hernando, it combines the best of both worlds with its cake donut ice cream.

In Montana, huckleberry hunting fever sweeps the state every summer, and at the Big Dipper employees use local huckleberries to make their signature huckleberry ice cream.

While technically not a specific flavor, Potter Sundry's in Potter, Neb., is home of the country's first tin roof sundae, both vanilla and chocolate ice cream, chocolate syrup, marshmallow cream and peanuts.

Tucked in a back hallway of the Bellagio you'll find one of Las Vegas' true steals: gelato so good it draws both locals and tourists alike. And what else to get at the Italian-inspired Cafe Gelato? Tiramisu, of course. 

It's one thing to have outrageous ice cream flavor combinations like white chocolate habanero, but another to make them taste good too. At Jordan's Ice Creamery, locals have voted it one of the best ice cream stands in the state several years running. Kettle corn ice cream with chocolate-covered kettle corn pieces and a sea salt caramel swirl running though it sounds like the perfect treat after a long hike.

Your typical thinly striped pistachio, chocolate and vanilla ice cream out of a mass-produced box won't do when talking about real Italian spumoni for New Jersey. No, the real thing is a lush layer of vanilla ice cream on top of rum bisque ice cream on top of chocolate ice cream, with chopped nuts and fruits giving that extra bit of bite that makes Nasto's Ice Cream Co.'s spumoni extra special. 

No state is crazier for chiles than New Mexico (red vs. green chile is always a hot debate), and at Chill'N Ice Creams, it makes a spiced dark chocolate with red chile. (And just to cool down the heat, some peppermint dark chocolate is thrown on top of this cone.) 

"New York" and "cheesecake" are two of the most beautiful words when put together, so what could be more perfect than the freshly made batches of blueberry cheesecake ice cream from New York's own Cayuga Lake Creamery?

At North Carolina State University, there is a working dairy processing lab that makes ice cream as part of the school's Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Science program, and it's sold it under its brand Howling Cow. What's the post popular flavor? Why the "Wolf Tracks" ice cream, of course: vanilla, caramel, chocolate peanut cups and fudge.

Favored by humans and wildlife like, chokecherries are one of those fruits that only the wisest of outdoorsy folk should try to pick in the wild lest they pick the wrong twig — they look like the poisonous buckthorn — but when put into ice cream at North Dakota's last small-town creamy, Pride Dairy? Sweet safety. Oh, and just for good measure you can make a banana split with chokecherry, rhubarb and juneberry ice creams to get a full serving of fruit for the day.

Ohio isn't Ohio without buckeyes, either on trees, hand-rolled in in the kitchen or as the Ohio State mascot. Graeter's salutes the mighty buckeye with an ice cream that is rife on the candy classic with peanut butter, chocolate, chocolate chips and peanut butter cookie dough.

Roxy’s Ice Cream Social in Oklahoma specializes in hand-churned ice cream and ice cream cookie sandwiches, so why not go with a flavor that is a little bit a both — graham cracker.

Few ice cream shops are as legendary for their unusual tastes as Oregon's Salt & Straw (dill pickle sorbet anyone?), but its classic Stumptown Coffee & Burnside Bourbon ice cream blends together two other Portland classics into one fantastic treat.

On a quiet stretch of road between Meadville and Conneaut Lake, travelers from every state make a road trip to Hank's Frozen Custard every summer, something it's proudly kept track of every season for decades by tracking license plates. And at Hank's, simplicity is often the best. There are few vanilla frozen treats that compare to its vanilla frozen custard, but if you want to fancy it up, it has sauces from chocolate, peanut butter and butterscotch to all manner of fruit.

Going for ice cream at Sweet Berry Farm in Rhode Island is more than just going for ice cream; you can pick your own berries in season, put together fresh flowers, watch a movie under the stars and shop for antiques. It uses its own gooseberries in its ice cream along with as many locally sourced ingredients as possible to keep the desserts as fresh-of-the-farm tasting as possible. 

We've all been there; too many zucchinis in someone's garden means zucchini baked into in all manner of breads and cakes. Why not put some into ice cream too? Well, that's what they do at the Sweet Cream Co. in South Carolina.

There is some dispute over who came up with the idea of the "cookies and cream" ice cream flavor, but at the South Dakota State University's dairy science program, it has a fairly legitimate claim to the invention's development in the 1970s. First or not, though, its particular blend of cookies and cream was named the best in the country by the Food Network Magazine.  

The line for Mike's Ice Cream in Nashville rivals any concert venue in the Music City, and with hand-cranked red velvet (with real pieces of red velvet cake blended right in) it's no wonder it's one of the hottest shows in town.  

Vanilla may not seem like a probable choice when thinking of Texas and ice cream, but the Mexican vanilla from Amy's Ice Cream makes up 20 percent of sales at this local chain. What makes the vanilla so distinct? A special hybrid vanilla bean that was crossbred with a Mexican orchid. 

For more than a hundred years, students in the Food Science program at Utah State University have been making ice cream for the residents of Utah. Arranged through their own shop on campus, Famous Aggie Ice Cream, you can even take tours of their teaching factory. Their best-selling flavor? Aggie Blue Mint, a mint-flavored ice cream with Oreo cookies and white chocolate chunks blended in, as pretty as the clear Utah sky.

Vermont's own Ben & Jerry's changed the entire ice cream world when they debuted their Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream in 1984. It's hard to imagine binge-watching, finals and breakups without Vermont's finest. 

To celebrate the annual cherry blossom festival, Dairy Godmother in Virginia blends bordeaux cherries into its famous frozen custard for a truly famous cherry blossom treat, almost as famous as its most famous fan's chair. 

The legend of Bigfoot lives on in Washington with Molly Moon's Sasquatch specialty blend ice cream. Sourced with local ingredients, this mighty beast features dark chocolate ice cream with a ribbon of caramel and housemade granola.

Every fall West Virginia hosts dozens of some of spookiest haunted houses in the country, so what better flavor to chase away ghosts than an ice cream made of the best guts, pumpkin guts? At Ellen's Homemade Ice Cream, the workers make sure this annual favorite haunts their October calendar. 

Wisconsin is home to dairy, lots and lots of dairy. From cheese curds to Cheeseheads, dairy dominates the state. So when visiting Wisconsin, go big; Briq's Soft Serve is known for its one-pound cones of chocolate-vanilla goodness. 

Wyoming is a study in contrasts; wide, smooth, open prairies to the east and tough, rocky, dark mountains to the west. What goes better with Wyoming than smooth caramel and chocolate-covered almonds at Big Dipper Ice Cream in Laramie?