Would you spend $12 a pint for a booze-infused frozen dessert to ease your flu symptoms?
Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream is counting on it.
The Ohio-based company's Influenza Sorbet has apparently become a sort of prescription du jour among foodies.
"This year, with the early start of the [flu] season and it being particularly nasty, the flavor is sort of having its moment," Jeni's spokesman Ryan Morgan told The Huffington Post. He said it has been the company's best-selling flavor in January.
The sorbet contains a blend of honey, ginger, orange juice, lemon juice, cayenne pepper and Maker's Mark bourbon. (The latter ingredient is trace enough to be kid-friendly, Morgan assures HuffPost.) Together, the ingredients create a flavor resembling "a whiskey sour with a spicy kick," the Los Angeles Times notes.
As for some of the sorbet's relief-providing properties, the honey coats the throat and the cayenne helps clear the nose, owner Jeni Britton Bauer told ABC.
Jeni's website reinforces the message: “This is our flu-season fix. It’s proven to clear nasal passages, ease a sore throat, and soothe the body."
According to the site, Bauer got the idea for the flavor -- a Jeni's staple since 2004 -- from a heated-up cough syrup concoction of whiskey, honey and lemon juice that her mother and grandmother used to make.
On a sour note, flu vaccine co-developer Doris Bucher told the Inquisitr that the product was cute but lacked the science behind it. Similarly, the Times reminded readers that Influenza Sorbet is not a cure.
But that doesn't put Bauer's spirits down.
“It’s not a miracle. It’s an at-home remedy — like chicken soup," Bauer told the news outlet.
Influenza Sorbet is available online and at Jeni's outlets in Columbus, Cleveland and Nashville through the winter.