Brooklyn creamery Ample Hills launched three “Star Wars”-inspired flavors on Monday, in anticipation of the upcoming “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” premiere.
In collaboration with Disney and George Lucas’ company Lucasfilm, the creamery paid tribute to the franchise by adopting three major “Star Wars” themes into their ice cream. First Order translates the power of the Dark Side with an espresso and salted dark chocolate ice cream. The Resistance flavor epitomizes the grit of the rebel forces in a vanilla bean ice cream with bits of vivid red velvet butter cake, hard toffees and marshmallows. The creamery also wields The Force, which tries to maintain the delicate balance between good and evil with a sweet cream ice cream mixed with rich chocolate fudge and star-like white and dark chocolate pearls.
Ample Hills co-founder and CEO Brian Smith said he has been obsessed with “Star Wars” all of his life.
“’Star Wars’ sheets? Check. ‘Star Wars’ action figures, comic books and trading cards? Check, check, check,” Smith said. “It’s the thrill of my adult life to be able to tell these three “Star Wars” stories through ice cream.”
The creamery developed the flavors in an ongoing creative exchange with Disney CEO Bob Iger, who has been a business mentor to him, Smith added. In 2015, Ample Hills created a similar campaign before the release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” with light and dark flavors.
A long time ago (2011) in a borough not so far away (Brooklyn), Smith and his wife, Jackie Cuscuna, co-founded the handmade ice creamery, which has since expanded to several locations in New York and California. The limited-edition “Star Wars” flavors are on offer at all five of the company’s permanent locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Whole Foods, Fresh Direct and amplehills.com will also sell the new flavors.
Online consumers will have their ice cream shipped in a “Star Wars”-themed box along with a make-your-own X-wing starfighter to aid in their own quest to destroy the Death Star.
“I think that Ample Hills nailed it with the flavors,” Pelham Parkway native Adina Puleo said in an email interview. “I am most excited about the Resistance, since I can’t resist a good chunky ice cream, and ooey gooey butter cake is my Kryptonite.”
Cuscuna, albeit not as intense a fan as her husband, recalls a third-grade play wherein she played C-3PO.
“My dad and I constructed the costume together out of gold oak tag paper and colored yarn, and I perfected my British accent and robotic movements nightly in front of the bathroom mirror,” she said. “I love how our ‘Star Wars’ flavors help to reveal these childhood memories.”
