Bourbon Ice Cream

Few desserts take as little hands-on time as homemade ice cream, and this slightly boozy, seriously delicious bourbon ice cream is no exception. It’s basically a rich, decadent vanilla ice cream with a touch of whiskey and brown sugar that’s perfect on a cone, in a bowl or alongside your favorite pie or dessert.

Use an ice cream maker to freeze heavy cream and milk thickened with egg yolks, turning them into an ice cream base with the rich silkiness of frozen custard. If you’re not yet ready to invest in a specialized machine, use one of our egg-free recipes to hone your frozen treat skills by making ice cream without an ice cream maker.

Although the prep and cooking go by quickly, you need to plan ahead: To make professional-quality ice cream, let the base rest overnight in the refrigerator before churning it, then freeze the finished ice cream for several more hours. The recipe makes about 5 cups, so you’ll need to churn in batches unless you have an extra-large ice cream machine. But the wait is worth it, especially because when you enjoy the first scoops, you know you have a couple more pints stashed in the freezer.

Ingredients for Bourbon Ice Cream

• Heavy whipping cream: With at least 36% milkfat, heavy cream makes a solid base for homemade ice cream. For the best results, buy a bottle or carton of pure cream, without stabilizers or flavorings.
• Milk: Because heavy cream can create a fatty mouthfeel, we balance this recipe with an equal amount of 2% milk. Milk cuts the fat and the cost.
• Brown sugar: Brown sugar deepens bourbon’s butterscotch notes and lightly colors the mixture. It also helps to keep the ice cream from crystallizing, so use the full amount listed in the recipe for the smoothest scoops.
• Salt: Salt plays an unexpected role in sweets, making them taste sweeter. Just a little gives this effect without making the ice cream taste salty.
• Egg yolks: You can make ice cream without egg yolks, but it won’t be nearly as rich and creamy. Boozy ice cream, which is prone to forming ice crystals, particularly benefits from the emulsifying power of egg yolks. It’s easiest to separate egg whites from yolks when the eggs are cold.
• Bourbon: Bourbon’s intrinsic sweetness plays well with cream. This type of American whiskey gets its sweet flavor from a base of corn mash. Use a mid-priced bottle to avoid the harshness of cheaper versions, or give your ice cream an upgrade by using your favorite sipping bourbon.
• Vanilla extract: For homemade ice cream, don’t make a vanilla mistake and settle for anything less than pure vanilla extract. If you’re on a homemade desserts kick, making vanilla extract at home is easy.

Directions

Step 1: Make the base

In a large heavy saucepan, combine the cream, milk, sugar and salt. Heat them over medium heat until bubbles form around the side of the pan, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

Step 2: Cook the custard

In a small bowl, whisk a small amount of the hot mixture into the egg yolks. Return the tempered yolks to the pan, whisking constantly. Cook the mixture over low heat until it’s just thick enough to coat a metal spoon and the temperature reaches 180°F, stirring constantly. Do not allow it to boil. Immediately transfer it to a bowl.

Editor’s Tip: When you whisk just a little hot liquid into egg yolks, it slowly thickens them and increases their temperature. Once you temper the eggs, you can slowly whisk them into the rest of the cream without them scrambling.

Step 3: Flavor and chill the custard

Place the bowl in a pan of ice water, and then stir gently and occasionally for two minutes. Stir in the bourbon and vanilla. Press waxed paper onto the surface of the mixture. Refrigerate it for several hours or overnight.

Editor’s Tip: Add the bourbon to taste, but don’t be tempted to pour in more than 4 tablespoons. Too much alcohol will keep the ice cream from freezing and make it taste and smell overly boozy.

Step 4: Churn and freeze the ice cream

Fill the cylinder of an ice cream maker two-thirds full and freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions. (Refrigerate the remaining mixture until you’re ready to freeze the rest of the batch.) Transfer the ice cream to a freezer container, and then freeze until firm, four to six hours. Repeat with the remaining custard mixture. If desired, served it with candied pecans

Editor’s Tip: For the smoothest homemade ice cream, keep everything cold after the custard ice bath. Freeze the ice cream maker cylinder when you put the custard in the refrigerator to chill overnight (unless you have a compressor machine whose instructions say otherwise). When you fill the cylinder and start churning, freeze the empty storage containers so they’re ice-cold when it’s time to fill them.

Bourbon Ice Cream Variations

• Change the alcohol: Instead of sweet bourbon, use your preferred type of whiskey—whether that’s mellow Irish whiskey or spicier rye. Replace the whiskey with brandy for its fruity notes or dark rum for an extra caramel hit.
• Mix in corn syrup: The alcohol in this ice cream helps to minimize graininess and uneven clumps, but corn syrup performs these tasks even better. Replace up to 1/4 cup of the brown sugar with light corn syrup or, if you don’t mind a tan color, dark corn syrup to mimic the molasses flavor.
• Give it vanilla flecks: For that classic speckled look, split a vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the cream before you heat it. The seeds will give the ice cream a stronger vanilla flavor, so cut back on the extract if you like. The pod still contains loads of oils, so don’t throw it out; bury it in a small jar of granulated sugar and let it sit for two weeks to create vanilla sugar.
• Make it soft serve: The low freezing point of alcohol keeps this ice cream quite soft unless you freeze it for several hours. If you prefer soft serve or just can’t wait, freeze it for about an hour after churning.

How to Store Bourbon Ice Cream

Store this homemade ice cream recipe in an airtight freezer container. As an extra measure, place waxed paper or storage wrap on the surface of the ice cream to prevent ice crystals from forming.

How long does bourbon ice cream last?

Enjoy bourbon ice cream within a couple of months (which shouldn’t be hard to do!). The bourbon makes the ice cream more prone to melting as your freezer cycles on and off, so it will likely form ice crystals if you store it longer—even when you take precautions like covering it with waxed paper.

Bourbon Ice Cream Tips

Is bourbon ice cream alcoholic?

This bourbon ice cream recipe does contain alcohol, but the bourbon flavor is more subtle once the ice cream is frozen. There’s the equivalent of a couple of shots in the entire 2-1/2-pint batch, and because you add the alcohol after chilling the custard base, none of it burns off like when you cook with wine. Adding pure vanilla extract highlights the whiskey’s vanilla taste and downplays the booziness. If you like this ice cream, try out these other bourbon-spiked recipes.

What pairs well with bourbon ice cream?

Pair this bourbon ice cream with ice cream toppings like roasted pecans, chocolate or cherries. It tastes right at home on warm peach cobbler or apricot-blackberry pie. Use it as the ice cream layer of cinnamon-laced snickerdoodle ice cream sandwich minis or stuff it between the pumpkin pie spice cookies in this pumpkin ice cream sandwich recipe. In tribute to a classic cocktail, serve bourbon ice cream with upside-down blood orange cupcakes instead of tangy creme fraiche—or alternate spoonfuls with sips of a freshly mixed old fashioned.