It has to be one of my favorite months because July is National Ice Cream Month. And around here, one of the hottest places to find ice cream is, of course, Andy's Frozen Custard. Actually - it's not really ice cream at all.
So what's the difference?

Rob Evans - We're live this morning Andy Kuntz himself, learning more about the differences between ice cream and frozen custard. Andy, tell us the difference.
Andy - Frozen custard is made fresh every hour. Basically, any frozen dessert gets worse as time goes on. So the fresher it is, the better it is. The creamier it tastes. Frozen custard is also served slightly warmer than ice cream. If you go to your local ice cream shop and get a scoop of hard ice cream, generally that product is around zero degrees and will actually freeze your tastebuds. Our product still feels cold on your palette and your mouth, but won't freeze your mouth. By the time you get to the end of a sundae or concrete, you're still able to taste that it is a strawberry or a caramel. With something colder, by the time you get to the fourth bite, you really can't taste the flavor. That's really the big difference with frozen custard and ice cream.

Sonya - And there are different ingredients, right?
Andy - We make fresh vanilla and chocolate right out of the machine every 45 minutes. And we have about 25 different toppings from strawberry, raspberry, key lime pie, pumpkin pie in the fall, hot fudge, all those different flavors that you can actually mix in. And when I say flavors, I mean they're real. We don't use a syrup. They are real strawberries or real key lime pie or real homemade pumpkin pie.

Sonya - My favorite is hot fudge, but what is the big seller there? In the summer, we sell a lot of fruits. We do blueberry, blackberry, and now we're into peach. The strawberry shortcake, which is my grandmother's recipe, those are all big-time summer hits. You can't exclude the Ozark Turtle which is hot fudge, caramel and roasted pecans. The number one item we sell is the concrete. That's probably 40% of our business.

Rob - For people who have never been there, Andy's Frozen Custard has been voted the No. 1 Best Thing About Living in Springfield. That's huge!
Andy - It is. You know, I scratch my head on that and I wonder if someone didn't count all the votes. But we are very honored. We love Springfield, Missouri. It's been great to the Kuntz family. We have really been embraced with open arms and we have been here for 24 years now and wouldn't pick another place to live. We were picked over great things like Bass Pro Shops and the Springfield Cardinals. I wouldn't say we're number 1, but apparently some folks think so.



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