While buying gelato-making equipment, Keith Mahler worried that Haines residents wouldn’t be interested in what his new business, Chilkat Valley Desserts, had to offer.
Ice cream is easy to find at stores throughout town. And with Haines prices already high, Mahler wasn’t sure residents would be willing to pay for fresh, high-quality ingredients.
“I kind of feel like Starbucks,” he said. “I’m going to open up this place, and it’s coffee that you can make at home.”
But then he heard an encouraging statistic: Alaskans eat more ice cream per capita than residents of any other state. That, he said, hardened his resolve.
Mahler has been making gelato—not ice cream—in Haines for about four months. In a storefront on Dalton City, he uses an imported Italian gelato maker to “spin” six to eight two-liter batches a week. The flavors range from the more conventional, like Death by Chocolate and cherry cheesecake, to the unusual, like goat cheese and passionfruit and Earl Gray tea and honey. The latter is one of his most popular flavors. “I can’t keep it in the case,” Mahler said. In the future, he hopes to incorporate local ingredients like thimbleberries and spruce tips into the gelato.
Mahler moved to Haines in 2017 after closing down his San Diego-area physical therapy practice, where he performed “peripheral neuropathies and a bunch of weird stuff that you’ve never heard of.”
His background in chemistry has helped with the process. Gelato is creamier and thicker than ice cream, but it actually has less fat. Its creaminess is due to its lower air content; while ice cream can be 50 percent air, gelato has only 20 to 30 percent. Ice cream generally is around 14 percent fat, while gelato is between 4 and 10 percent. Mahler said his gelato is between 7.5 and 7.8 percent fat.
Mahler hopes to provide gelato to local businesses, in addition to serving customers directly. “I don’t necessarily want to be in here 24/7,” he said. “It’s going to be kind of a combination, a little wholesale and retail.” He hopes to sell Chilkat Valley Desserts’ gelato at Mountain Market and Olerud’s, and plans to open a booth at fairs. He currently sells at the farmers market.
Farmers market organizer Vija Pelekis said that the gelato is generating some buzz. “I hear people talking about it,” she said. “It’s a nice addition to the market scene.”
Pelekis also cited the statistic about Alaskans eating more ice cream per capita than residents from any other state.
Some research shows that this statistic is likely apocryphal. There seems to be no data to back it up. But Mahler says the gelato has gotten an enthusiastic reception anyway. Free tastings in June and July, advertised through Facebook, attracted crowds of over a hundred, Mahler said.
“So that was like, careful what you wish for,” he said.