Gopika Khanna’s Hice Cream offers up cocktails in a jar
CHRISTINE MACHADO
While too much of ice cream can give one a sugar rush, Gopika Khanna’s Hice Cream, will give you a different kind of high. Started in 2016, Hice Cream in Assagao blends the best cocktails with magic of artisan ice cream to give you a different boozy experience.
And it all began with Khanna looking for a change of sorts.“My family shifted to Goa from Mumbai about two and a half years ago and I was looking for a way to reinvent myself and do something different,” she says.
Her first thought was to hop into the baking line. “My mum has always been very good at baking and since we were kids we too have picked up on this,” she states. However, she realised this wasn’t the best idea. “I soon discovered that there were plenty of home bakers in Goa and this way I would just be one of many,” she says.
After putting a lot of thought and research, she turned her attention to ice creams and began brain storming on how she could make ice creams with alcohol. “I’ve always been fond of cocktails and everytime I travelled anywhere, cocktails was something I always experimented. So I decided to dissect these. So these are basically cocktails turned into ice creams,” she explains.
Of course it took awhile before she got it right. “My neighbours became my guinea pigs for these experiments,” she says laughing. “Now though they are my regular customers.”
Hice Cream was officially launched in 2016 and all her creations have been named after iconic movies and songs. These include intriguing names like Shiver Me Timbers ( rum and raisin), Whiskey Rock-a -Roller (chocolate bourbon), Sin City ( lavender martini), The French Connection (contreau and organic cocoa) and The Godfather (long island iced tea).
“ A lot of my Indian clients prefer the chocolate and coffee based offers while the foreign clientele go for martinis and pina coloda,” she observes.
Apart from this, Khanna also has a non alcoholic range of ice creams. “My eight year old of course can’t have these alcohol ice creams so he has curated the flavour in the non alcholic section and we keep getting innovative with these,” she says, adding that Hice Cream also does orders for parties, events at resorts, conference and gala dinners. “We use fresh ingredients and have chosen to use glass jars as these are recyclable,” she says. While these ice creams are available for takeaway, they also do home delivery in and around Assagao.
“We will now be concentrating on developing a sugar free range and have also received a lot of feedback for vegan offers. Also, while uptil now we have only done 350 ml jars idea for two- three persons, we will now be doing 125 ml jars too,” says Khanna.
