News

Pride Dairy goes to the presidents with ice cream creation

By Scott Wagar

08/27/2013

One of the greatest sites individuals can see in the Badlands of South Dakota is Mount Rushmore, but thanks to the local creamery in Bottineau Mount Rushmore just became a better place to visit.
This summer, Pride Dairy began suppling Mount Rushmore’s cafeterias with vanilla ice cream from its creamery that replicates Thomas Jefferson’s homemade recipe, which the third president of the United States served to dignitaries while in office and even once at a State Dinner inside the White House.

Pride’s ice cream, called Thomas Jefferson Vintage Vanilla Ice Cream, started through Arlen Franchuk out of Fargo who is employed with Dean’s Food.

“Arlen called me and said that they do business with Mount Rushmore and added they were looking for someone who would be willing to try to duplicate the original recipe that Thomas Jefferson had for ice cream,” said Jeff Beyer, owner and operator of Pride Dairy in Bottineau. “Back in the day Thomas Jefferson was great for making his own ice cream and serving it to family, friends and even dignitaries.”

Beyer told Franchuk that he would take a look at the recipe and see what he could do, while at the same time Franchuk set up a contact between Beyer and Lloyd Shelton who operates the cafeterias for Mount Rushmore.

“I called Lloyd and he said that he had the original Thomas Jefferson recipe and he would send a copy out to me, which he did, along with a printed version of it,” Beyer said. So, we looked at the recipe and deciphered through it and decided that it was a no brainier for us here at Pride. It was so easy for us to duplicate the recipe. The way Jefferson did it back then is basically the same way we here at Pride do it now, we just do it on a larger scale.

“The biggest thing we had to change was back in the day they used raw eggs in the recipe, and we do not use that because eggs have to be pasteurizered now, but other than that, it was pretty easy.”

Although Jefferson’s method was close to Pride Dairy’s technique, the creamery had to do a little extra work in getting the recipe just right, and through the process learned a little history of the United States that dates back to the late 1700s.

“We found out that at that time the United States did a lot of trading with Madagascar. Well, Madagascar has some of the best vanilla beans you can get, so we kind of assume that is where they were getting their beans from,” Beyer said. “So, we did some more research and were able to get some Madagascar beans. We brought those in and used it in the recipe.”

Once the ice cream was made, Pride sent samples to Mount Rushmore; and, after Shelton tested the ice cream, “the rest was history” as Beyer now likes to say.

“It has been an unbelievable ride,” Beyer said. “They told us they would order 300 containers (the containers are two and a half gallons of ice cream each) for the whole summer and we just now received an order for over 1,300 containers.”

To date, Mount Rushmore has served over 18,000 cones (A waffle cone with two scopes) of Pride Dairy’s Jefferson Ice Cream and the product has literally brought worldwide attention to Pride Dairy.

“There has also been a long list of articles written about the ice cream. In fact, we just had a guy call from Los Angeles who learned about it through an article in National Geographic which mentioned Pride Dairy in the story,” Beyer said. “And, Shelton has sent the ice cream to New York City marketing it to the Today Show and Fox News’ Fox and Friends.”

Shelly Spang, who is an employee of Pride Dairy and played a major part in duplicating the Jefferson Ice Cream, recently went to the Sturgis Rally and made a trip to Mount Rushmore to see the scene concerning Pride’s recent creation.

“Being down there and seeing the atmosphere was incredible,” Spang said. “I was like a silly little school girl because I was so excited to visually see it and it was a total thrill.”    

Shelton is also working on having the ice cream sent to the White House, which he hopes can be served to dignitaries and at State Dinners in the same manor Jefferson did during his presidency.

Outside of Shelton’s marketing work, Mount Vernon has contacted him and has struck a deal to have the ice cream served there in the near future, as it will at Pride Dairy starting in May of 2014.

“We have an exclusive contact with Mount Rushmore where I cannot and will not sell it to anybody outside of Mount Rushmore for one year,” Beyer said. “That ends on May 1, 2014.”

Outside of Pride’s Jefferson Ice Cream, the newspaper, USA Today, has once again named Pride Dairy’s ice cream parlor, the Dairy Dipper, one of the Top 10 ice cream parlors in the Midwest.

For Beyer, he is humbly touched by the reaction of those who enjoy the ice cream and the media attention given to the creamery.

“It has just been crazy,” he said. “Pride Dairy has never received publicity like this before.”