It was blazing hot in Brooklyn during the summer of 1959. So when the spray of fire hydrants wasn't chilly enough to keep kids cool, Uncle Louie decided to whip up some Italian ices for the neighborhood. This became a tradition on the block, and then the neighborhood, and eventually, grew into a fully-fledged business: Uncle Louie G's Italian Ices & Ice Cream. Though there are now outposts of this Brooklyn institution all across the U.S., staff still whip up Italian ices using Uncle Louie's old-fashioned recipes. Enjoy scoops full of Italian ice in a range of sweet flavors, from root beer to lemon to decadent peanut butter chocolate cup. They also use Uncle Louie's recipes to create ice cream flavors such as pistachio, butter pecan, and apple pie a la mode—the latter of which combines rich vanilla ice cream with actual chunks of the dessert to create a flavor as all-American as a photo of Henry Fonda wearing a hotdog costume.