The ice cream island

Somewhere we had read that Skarø had something to do with ice cream. So when we arrived here today, we set out to investigate.
Skarø is very small. I am sorry, it may be getting boring having to read about small islands, but it's the truth. About 40 local inhabitants. But also, and that starts to bring us back to the topic, 40 birch trees. It appears that the sap of the birch tree has certain properties which make it ideal to use in ice cream as part substitute for sugar. It also then enhances the flavour of whatever else is used in the ice cream. Thus, 'Is fra Skarø' was developed. This is the factory:





As you can see from the sign they also sell the product there and we sampled rhubarb and honey flavours. If you go to www.isfraskaroe.dk, you may learn more.

We walked around the island (which took about 2 hours, including he ice cream eating episode) and found a birch tree in the process of 'being tapped':





If these 40 trees are the only ones being used and the Skarø factory the only production facility, I fear this is not a big business. Maybe the website reveals more, I have not looked at it yet. The brochures we picked up 'Gourmet ice-cream' and 'Specially designed ice-cream' suggest that there is more than ( literally) meets the eye.