‘Tis the season for pumpkins.
The common orange gourds are popping up in pumpkin patches and vendor stalls everywhere.
And so is its flavour. Pumpkin beer, pumpkin latte, and pumpkin gelato are just some of the pumpkin-flavoured treats available at this time of the year.
"It's really, really nice. It smells delicious and it tastes like fall," says Ali Dusome of a mug of pumpkin spice black tea latte at The Tea Store in Ottawa’s Byward Market. You can have it with a plate of pumpkin pie or pumpkin scones.
Brewmaster Patrick Fiori calls the pumpkin ale at Ottawa’s Clocktower Brew Pub a holiday dessert in a glass. “It has pumpkin in it. But it’s really the flavours of pumpkin pie. So there’s cinnamon. There’s nutmeg and ginger,” he says.
The Gelatini Gelato store goes one better. “We actually take a pie and blend it up with our base,” says store worker Amber Monteith.
People, it seems, love the taste of pumpkin and pumpkin pie. And researchers may have found a reason, at least for men. The Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Center in Chicago reports that the smell of pumpkin pie can actually be an aphrodisiac, resulting in a measurable increase in male physical arousal. “Maybe that’s why it’s so popular,” Monteith adds with a laugh.
Here is a list of some of the Ottawa businesses we visited selling pumpkin products:
The Tea Store – pumpkin spice latte, pumpkin pie
The Clocktower Brew Pub – pumpkin ale
Gelatini Gelato – pumpkin pie gelato
Stone Soup Foodworks – pumpkin soup
Moulin de Provence Bakery – pumpkin cookies, pies and tarts
Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory – pumpkin chocolates and candy apples
The list is by no means complete. Plenty of other local businesses are jumping on the pumpkin flavour bandwagon.
Or is that the pumpkin wagon?
