Product Reviews / Main Nibbles / Ice Cream

Bob’s Pickle Pops

Frozen Pickle Juice As A Savory Ice Pop

CAPSULE REPORT: And now for something different, as Monty Python would say. The Pythons would have a good time with Bob’s Pickle Pops, frozen ice pops made from pickle brine and pickle juice. These “tartsicles” are just 3 calories a pop.

• Overview
• Health Benefits
• Buy Online

You don’t have to be pregnant to crave Bob’s Pickle Pops (previously known as Pickle Sickles). They’ve been selling out in Texas for years, and thanks to online ordering, you can have them wherever you live.

First, let’s explain the almost-obvious: Bob’s Pickle Pops are push-up ice pops made from pickle juice (the brine left over from pickling) and freshly-squeezed pickles, much like an apple or orange is pressed for juice. They taste like frozen pickle juice, and they were a sellout at the Outerskate roller skating rink in Seguin, Texas, where they were invented.

Yes, many people are happy to have a frosty, salty, sour treat instead of a sweet ice pop or ice cream. But there’s more to Bob’s Pickle Pops than a three-calorie, sugar-free ice pop.

Health Benefits Pickle Pops are healthy. Vinegar, which is a component of pickle brine, is a healthy food. While there are many unsubstantiated claims for vinegar (especially apple cider vinegar) as an overall health tonic and disease preventative. While some of these are overstated, alternative therapists and scientists alike can agree on that vinegar is high in acetic acid, which, like other acids, can increase the body’s absorption of important minerals in the foods we eat, including calcium.

• Vinegar has also won attention in a 2004 study for its potential to help type 2 diabetes. Indications show that vinegar may be able to inactivate some of the digestive enzymes that break the carbohydrates from food into sugar, thus slowing the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream.
• The spices used in the pickling process, such as garlic and dill, have wide-ranging health properties. Garlic is an anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and cardiovascular aid (it helps to lower blood pressure).
• The sodium in a Bob’s Pickle Pop is less than that in a slice of bread.
• It has no fat and have less than 1 gram of sugar.

If the idea of frozen brine appeals to you, the calories can’t be beat. The pops arrive unfrozen—juice in plastic casing. Stick them in the freezer and in a few hours, you’ve got Pickle Pops. And don’t throw out the brine in your pickle jars—freeze it! (See more tips for using brine.)

Coming soon: Spicy Pickle Pops.

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D.L. Stewart: Small town spreads PickleSickle craze

BY D.L. STEWART
PATERNITY WARD
3-11-08

As even its creators admit, "This is one of those crazy ideas that should have died a quick and horrible death right from the beginning, right? But it didn't."

So now you and I can go suck a PickleSickle. Well, you, maybe. Because a PickleSickle is exactly what it sounds like: frozen pickle juice.

"Frozen pickle juice pops have been popular treats for kids at fairs, drive-in movies and other events for years," according to the Austin American-Statesman. Which is not exactly a ringing endorsement from Bon Appetit. Although maybe that's a Texas thing.

What is new is the idea of marketing them nationally. That idea was hatched, as so many of the great ones were, at a roller rink in Seguin, Texas, a town of 22,011 about 50 miles south of Austin. For years, Seguin was best known as the "Pecan Capital of Texas" and was proud to display the "World's Largest Pecan." Which wasn't a pecan, at all, but a 5-foot long, 2 1/2-foot wide chunk of concrete that looked like a pecan and was located in front of the county courthouse. But then a similar, but considerably larger, concrete pecan was hewn in Missouri and Seguin was in danger of fading into anonymity.

Fortunately, one of the 22,011 resident of Seguin is John Howard, a retired plumber and the owner of the Outerskate roller skating rink and arcade, where local kids congregate under multicolored disco lights. Among the treats he made available to his customers was frozen pickle juice in plastic cups, which sold for 75 cents.

"We were selling so many of them," Howard reports, "we figured if that many people in the little town of Seguin liked them, there'd be plenty of people in the rest of the country who'd like them, too."

That may have been a stretch, but then frozen pickle juice would not necessarily be the most surprising thing Texas has sold to the rest of the country in the past decade.

So Howard, his wife and assorted family members began to make PickleSickles, described by those who have personally encountered them as "2 ounces of dill pickle juice frozen in a Vienna sausage-sized plastic bag."

"We use 100 percent of the pickle," declares PickleSickles co-founder David Millar. And the company's Web site, picklesickle.com, notes they are a healthful treat made "not from just the brine left over from pickling, but from freshly squeezed pickles, much like an apple or orange is pressed."

The company already has capitalized on the health angle, announcing the USDA in January has approved PickleSickles for sale in public and private school districts across the country. Now it's marketing them as a booster club and PTA fundraising product.

And, for those who prefer their PickleSickles to not taste too pickley, the company is working on the development of cherry-dill PickleSickles and lime-dill PickleSickles.

I haven't tried a PickleSickle and I don't know anyone who has. I'm not even sure I know anyone who would. Not until after a few beers, at least. But if you have a craving for frozen pickle juice, you can order it at www.picklesickle.com. For $17.95, they'll ship you a package of 16 PickleSickles. Or, as I'd describe it, a lifetime supply.