Long Island Ice Cream Tour: Visit nine parlors in 10 hours

It’s the Mount Everest of Ice Cream, now in its seventh year: On Sunday, July 23, The Long Island Ice Cream Tour (LIICT) will attempt to sample the wares at nine local ice cream parlors in 10 hours.

Jeff Noreman of Old Bethpage and Derek Steen, a friend from Buffalo, conceived of this daylong brain freeze in 2011. That first year there were a dozen participants and eight stops. This year, more than 60 people are expected, and the public is invited to join in. The suggested uniform is roomy pants and a red top.

The tour starts at 8:45 a.m. at Star Confectionery (4 E. Main St., Riverhead) where breakfast is also available for those who prefer to lay in a ballast of eggs or pancakes before starting in on the main event. By 10 a.m. the tour will arrive at Snowflake Ice Cream Shoppe (1148 W. Main St., Riverhead) where there will be an ice-cream-making demo. From there the tour proceeds westward in a rough zigzag until it pulls into Itgen’s (211 Rockaway Ave., Valley Stream), where non-ice cream dinner is available — but you would be foolish to pass up the hot fudge sundae.

Everybody drives themselves, there’s no fee to join in, and many of the ice cream shops are offering discounts to tour members.

The full itinerary is at liict.org and you can join up, or leave, at any point. For real-time updates on the group’s whereabouts, consult the Long Island Ice Cream Tour page on Facebook or follow @liictour on Twitter.