PICKLE-SICKLE

A proper pickle-sickle is not just excess juice from a jar of dill pickles that has been frozen. Correctly made, it contains real pickle squeezin’s, which give it a chunkier flavor than mere brine. The term Pickle Sickle (without a hyphen) is in fact a trademarked name for blister packs full of pickle juice that are made in Seguin, Texas, and shipped to customers who freeze them and then eat them like stickless Popsicles. Pickle Sickle proprietor John Howard started serving them at his roller rink in 2007. As Howard once told a reporter, “There are a lot of closet pickle drinkers in South Texas.”

No doubt, Texas is America’s most pickle-happy state, but we have found good pickle-sickles throughout the Ozarks, where they are sold by the frozen cupful at convenience stores and independent ice cream stands—mostly to kids, according to the vendors with whom we’ve spoken. Year-round, there is no shortage of them in Atkins, Arkansas, where a pickle juice–drinking contest is always part of May’s annual Picklefest.