This week’s heat wave prompted an ice cream panic. We need cool, melty satisfaction, and we need it right now. Luckily, Portland’s craft ice cream movement is stepping up its game with new ice cream shops, inspired flavors, and restaurants making their own frozen treats.

• First stop, the Fifty Licks truck at SE Belmont and 43rd. Mobile ice-cream man Chad Draizin has whipped up a new Rhode Island Frozen Lemonade sorbet. Ground pith-and-all, this tart, intensely lemony sorbet is the answer to Portland's sweltering heat wave.

Fifty Licks Brick-and-Mortar is coming, and the frozen lemonade is just a taste of things to come. Eat Beat has learned that Draizin’s scoop shop is slated to open the first week of August. “This is a classy ice cream place,” says Draizin, “—the type of place where you can take a date after dinner instead of going to a bar.” The new shop on 2021 SE Clinton will stock 12 ice creams, 4 sorbets, and 2 soft-serve flavors that swirl in tandem (think chocolate and Spanish churro). Each gluten-free cone comes with a gratis topping, from freeze-dried raspberry powder and candied rosemary to crushed potato chips and Jacobsen Salt Co. ghost chile salt. Also on tap: Stovetop “abuela-style” Cuban coffee in shot glasses and sorbet floats rafted with sparkling wine. 

• Salt & Straw on Division: Salt & Straw’s third location is now open on SE Division and 33rd Place, sporting red and white striped fabrics draped above the windows, a waffle-cone inspired ceiling, and a new wall of shelves stocked with local ingredients found in the house ice creams. The Division branch carries Salt & Straw's newest project: a "six-pack" of of deconstructed Oregon beer flavors. The sixer includes ice cream aged in Hair of the Dog bourbon barrels, an IPA Upside Down Cake steeped with hops from Gigantic brewing, and our favorite, a carmelized Widmer hefeweizen with smoked wheat malts. Incredible. Check out our opening day slide show by clicking the photo above. 

• Melty Goods: Saint Cupcake’s Jami Curl (check out photos from her new candy shop, Quin) has been churning out a line of “melty goods” since last summer. Local fruit ice creams are sandwiched between graham crackers, brown butter cookies, and even scooped atop cupcakes.

• Farm-Fresh Flavors: Ruby Jewel is celebrating their 8th year at the PSU Farmers Market with market-exclusive seasonal ice cream sandwiches. So far, the market haul has brought brown sugar cookies with rhubarb curd ice cream, snickerdoodle with Portland Creamery chevre/strawberry-rose ice cream, and lavender shortbread with Meyer lemon ice cream.

• After-Dinner Ice Cream: Andy Ricker’s Sen Yai serves half-pints of Ai-tiim (Thai-style coconut milk ice cream) for $7.50. Flavors range from rice-scented pandan to a funky durian fruit variety. Across the street at Ava Genes, dessert whiz Clare Gordon makes ethereal gelato, whipping up a salted peanut number crafted from grade-A North Carolina nuts, and a cows-milk fior di latte covered in tiny balls of chocolate cereal crunch. Over at Laurelhurst Market, the steak-obsessives churn up buttermilk chocolate chip to go over pecan walnut pie and mix olive oil ice cream for their rhubarb thumbprint cookies.

• Ice Cream CSA: The Scoop ice cream truck has launched a “community supported ice cream” program. Stick a cooler outside your house on delivery day, and get a fresh pint of rotating flavors like Bourbon Buttered Pecan and Raspberry Chocolate Cake once a month.   

Did we miss your favorite new ice cream flavor? Have a secret sorbet you'd like to share? Comment below!