Lorelei Infusions

813 S. Broad St., Brooksville, FL, 34601

Lorelei Infusions Old Fashioned Creamery is a downtown Brooksville ice cream shop that makes its ice cream and sorbet from scratch on site, using dairy from local farms and an infusion process that steeps fruits, botanicals, teas and coffees into the base. It runs a dual menu: fifteen family flavours such as Captain's Crunch and Seaside Strawberry Swell, and ten 21-and-over adult flavours infused with bourbon, whiskey, rum, vodka and liqueurs, including Praline Port and Bourbon and Bacon, alongside ice cream flights, milkshakes, freeze-dried treats, pints to go, custom ice cream cakes and a coffee bar. The shop's real distinction is its equipment and lineage: co-owner Paula Thompson's husband Steve is the grandson of Emery Thompson, who built the first automated ice cream machine in 1903, and the shop churns on a military-grade Thompson machine nicknamed Godzilla, one of roughly fifty made for Operation Desert Storm and visible to customers through viewing windows. Co-owner Wendy McGinnis is a retired Hernando County deputy sheriff and a former Weeki Wachee mermaid, which is where the mermaid decor and the Lorelei siren name come from.