Ice cream stand has secret weapon to beat the heat

CINCINNATI - They come like rabbits to a desert watering hole.

Kids, parents, and grandparents. Some just relaxing. Others, like tow truck driver Hal Vollrath are still on the job.

"Just towed a garbage truck," he said.

They're all seeking a break from what feels like the world's largest terrarium at Putz's Creamy Whip off Montana Avenue in Westwood.

"(When you're ) out for a while, it gets real brutal," Vollrath said as he stepped up to the wooden order window to order a malt.

Creamy Whip ice cream stands are a common sight in the Tri-State.

Still people flock from miles away to Putz's, which was founded in 1938.

"I had a friend whose mom... lived in the West End," said Pamela Blassingame. "She would come all the way out here to get the ice cream. That's how I found out about it."

So what is it that makes this ice cream different?

"We call her Old Betsy," said Maddie Anderson, a Putz's server.

'Old Betsy' and her art deco sister machine were made in the early 1950s by the now-defunct Electro Freeze Company.

"It's much creamier than the newer machines make the ice cream," said Anderson.

Co-worker Mindi Leach agreed.

"It's the secret," she said. "It makes the ice cream really creamy. There's barely any air in it."

And so they come. Families like the Pointers, who are exposing their son Matt for the first time. Mom Ann Pointer was introduced to Putz's by her mother years ago.

"Nothing beats ice cream," Ann Pointer said at a shaded picnic table.

Loyal customers say nothing beats the ice cream that comes out of 'Old Betsy.'