I was introduced to a new place in the little town of Clinton, about 50 miles west of Boston last week called The Fountain.
The Fountain is an adorable pair of storefronts on the main street of downtown housing a candy shop and a soda fountain.
The whole place is adorable decorated - with confetti sprinkles painted on the ceilings, pastel awning stripes on the upper walls, and waffle-cone-trellis painted wainscoting.
When I was there last month, they were celebrating “Christmas in July” so there were Christmas cookies in the candy shop and Christmas decorations everywhere. We saw Santa arriving as we were driving away :).
The candy side has jars of candy to scoop for by-the-pound purchase. There are candies from various other countries, and a lot of old fashioned candy- like rock candy.
There is something for everyone including nut free, dairy free, sugar free, soy free, vegan, and gluten free options.
They also sell cookies and a large variety of flavors of fudge. I bought some penuche nut fudge for my mom when I was there - she reports it was delicious!
The fountain side was the reason we went - the menu was fascinating.
The fountain offers a large variety of soft serve flavors, stackers - which are sort of parfait style sundaes with layers of soft serve and all kinds of toppings, and floats and shakes.
But the most intriguing things the soda fountain offers are the two that we tried: ice cream nachos, and dirty soda.
Ice cream nachos come in a shareable size in a plastic tray with a serving of the flavor of your choice of soft serve, a cup of ice cream sauce, and a sprinkle of topping all served alongside a pile of waffle-cone “chips”.
We ordered a classic with vanilla soft serve and hot caramel sauce and a dusting of biscoff crumbs…and it was DELICIOUS. I mean how could it not be? And what a creative idea! I’m going to need to steal this idea as a dessert option for a dinner party sometime…
The other item, and the signature offering of the place is dirty soda.
Now, I had never even HEARD of dirty soda, but apparently it’s a pop culture thing. For those of you living under a rock with me, dirty soda seems to be a mocktail sort of drink that involves a base of soda over ice to which flavored syrup(s) and often also flavored creamer are added.
I opted for a seltzer with some syrups added, but my companions each got one of the classic dirty soda recipes with a Dr. Pepper base, and they were really, really tasty!
I’m in the throes of putting together the menu for a cocktail/mocktail party next week and I’ve added a do-it-yourself dirty soda bar to the mix - it will be interesting to see how it goes!
In any case, if you live in range of Clinton, MA this place is totally worth a visit. We were there on a random Friday afternoon and it was hopping, so I think they do a brisk business. Wishing them continued success!
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