Tours run every 30 minutes and are limited to 40 people, and our tour was packed thanks to those bus tours. First, you sit and watch a brief movie about how Ben and Jerry took a $5 correspondence course in ice cream making and turned it into the huge business it is today (even though it's now owned by Unilever).
After the film, the real magic begins. Sadly, visitors are not allowed to take pictures of this portion of the tour, but when screens lift around you to reveal huge windows looking down on the employees and assembly line, you'll understand why. No copycats or tricksters welcome.
After this, which is the major focus of the tour, you're ushered down a hallway past testing rooms and into the most anticipated part: sampling a flavor for free. The day we visited, they were churning out Milk & Cookies, so little sample cups (you could have more than one) were passed around. After this, the tours are released back into the gift shop, where there's the option of visiting the outdoor ice cream stand for a second go at the fresh stuff, but this time you have to pay for it.
All in all, the tour takes about 25 minutes and whatever time of the day it is (10am in our case), you will be left craving dessert. We only wish we had known about the Foursquare check-in special before we paid for the tour.
Not part of the tour, but a must-visit regardless, is the famous Flavor Graveyard. After a walk up a hill past a playground, you can weep all you want over retired flavors like "Holy Cannoli," "Makin Whoopie Pie," "Rainforest Crunch," and "White Russian," which we would have loved if it hadn't only existed from 1994-2001. RIP, dear flavors.
[All photos: Cynthia Drescher for Jaunted]
