Gilroy Garlic Taste Test

Welcome to Gilroy! Gilroy California is the Garlic Capital of the World! And you can totally tell it! When we hopped out of the truck, the air had the perfume of garlic! 

Will Rogers once stated that "Gilroy is the only town I know where you can marinade a steak by hanging it on the clothesline."

We're visiting around the time of year of the famed Gilroy Garlic Festival, but sadly, it is still on hiatus this year. We'll have to figure out what we can do instead. 

Just off the 101 Freeway, there's not just one, but two garlic stores, for all your garlic needs. The first place we're going is called The Garlic Shoppe. They've been a local staple since 1985. 

Inside, well of course it smells like garlic. There's so much garlic here! 

All sorts of seasonings, sauces, and other treats. 

But I think from here, we're going to get a bit of Garlic Parmesan Kettle Corn ($5.99). I've had regular garlic parmesan popcorn before, but sweet kettle corn? We'll see how that tastes. 

In the parking lot, the kids were thrilled to see a bunch of farm animals. The horse was interested in seeing if we had food. We saw a few goats, which reminded us all of Henry and his goats back in Florida. 

And we got another look at some Oreo cows! 

Less than a mile down the 101 Freeway is another garlic store called Garlic World! 

They've got an even bigger parking lot. 

Outside there's plenty of garlic to purchase. I love garlic, but I don't think I could go through a bag that big. 

Inside you'll find lot of garlic sauces, powders, and even other vegetables and fruits from local farmers. 

Ian standing in front of the World's Longest Garlic Braid at 216 feet. 

Here's the thing I always hear about when people are talking about the unique garlic creations that come from Gilroy. And if you go to the Gilroy Garlic Festival you always hear about the Garlic Ice Cream. 

Garlic Ice Cream? Yep! Coming from Marianne's Ice Cream in Santa Cruz and supplied to the stores in the area. This comes in both regular Garlic flavor and Chocolate Garlic flavor. Both of these containers were super tiny for the $3 price tag. I thought it was odd that one said 5 fl. oz, while the other said 3.5 fl. oz. They both felt like they were the same weight. 

Along with the Garlic Popcorn and Garlic Ice Cream, how about another treat. This time a baked good. Garlic Chocolate Chip Cookies? $3 for 3 cookies. Why not. 

Here's our haul for today. Three different garlic treats. Garlic cookies, popcorn, and ice cream. 

Let's start with the ice cream since it's gonna melt first. 

What do you think? Garlic Ice Cream? Would you try it? 

Theresa was the brave one and started us off. That is not a happy face. 

Ian's taste buds finally made the connection to his brain. 

Ugh. He hated it! He was gagging and threatening to throw up. 

Alli was taking no chances with her bite. She took her spoon over to the trash can along with her water bottle. After taking the smallest of bites, she spat it out and declared it horrible. 

Seeing so much drama, I had to give it a try. 

I mean, it tastes like creamy garlic sauce and it's frozen. It definitely tastes of garlic. I don't know how else it should have tasted. It's not something I want to eat all the time, but it tastes like what it said it would. 

The chocolate one had a bit more of a muted flavor to it. Still garlic, but as an accent flavor to the chocolate. Between the two, I liked the creamy garlic ice cream best. 

Let's give something else a try. How about those Garlic Chocolate Chip Cookies?

The kids liked these a lot better. They were a soft cookie, with chocolatey chips, and no taste of garlic at all. Seriously. I thought maybe it was that we tasted something garlicky beforehand, but no. I saved a cookie for later and still, Theresa and I both agreed that there was no garlic flavor in these cookies. 

Let's move on to the Garlic Parmesan Kettle Corn. I mean, it smells like garlic. 

The bag is covered in garlic powder and parmesan dust. 

Giving it a taste, neither Theresa nor I were getting the sweet kettle corn flavor. This has a very salty hit to it, but parmesan and garlic has always been a good combination on popcorn. 

So what are the favorites? 

For Theresa, Alli, and myself, it's got to be the popcorn. 

Ian, who doesn't care for garlic apparently, likes the cookies best because they don't have a garlic flavor. 

I'm glad we got to visit Gilroy and try a lot of their garlic treats!