Naughty and nice. Lace and leather. Chocolate and chili. Human beings like to bring contradictory qualities together and experiment on what the outcome will be.

For Patricia Gana, director for research and product development of M33 The Company, Inc., the qualities were those in the treat enjoyed by everyone of every age—and the woozy-boozy indulgence someone can enjoy (at least legally) only when he or she turns 18 years old.

“I came up with the idea in 2009,” Gana narrates, “and by October of that year, we had come up with the final mixture.” A graduate of Center for Asian Culinary Studies, she trained as a pastry chef in Le Cordon Bleu in Bangkok, from where she called a friend, Pinky Jacob-Ileto, to enthusiastically relay her lightbulb moment.

That idea was adult ice cream. Dubbed Lickqueur, it combines the benign and innocent delight of ice cream with the grown-up pleasures of imbibing alcoholic cocktails.

“We had more than 10 trials, and fed around 200 people,” Ileto, business development director, shares. Their first flavor was Margarita Passion, strong but smooth on the tongue and tangy, like a sorbet. They remember staying up until 3 a.m. coming up with formulas, and making a batch of 200 gallons per week, pulling all-nighters in Ileto’s house.

Humble in the Face of Success

With two other friends—Earl Yu and Ria Manalo—they incorporated their venture and put up a Facebook Fan Page that promoted Lickqueur. Within a week, calls were coming in from malls to offer opening an outlet. “It’s such a powerful tool,” says Ileto. “We were also getting inquiries from Australia and the U.S.—but that’s something we’ll look at maybe five or six years down the line.”

Lickqueur’s big break came during an MTV event last December, when they served 5,000 scoops to 8,000 guests. Since then, Lickqueur’s fast become a favorite among wedding and event planners; different hotels and restaurants, for which they custom-make batches.

Despite Lickqueur's huge success, Ileto and her partners remain conservative in business. They have one distributor each in Makati and Manila, prefer to respond to orders for pick-up via phone, and even if operations have moved from Ileto’s home to a factory, the company makes only 200 gallons a week—far from mainstream industry figures.

Just Having Fun

Born from a love for fun, it’s no surprise that the creation of Lickqueur was almost stress-free. Gana confesses she “likes to cook, and to eat” and that Lickqueur is a “labor of love—and lust!”

The product had its roadblocks—alcohol is hard to freeze, and Gana experimented with liquid nitrogen and various kinds and amounts of stabilizers to come up with the right texture and hardness.

“What we did was to first experiment with the liquid form, as the ice cream should stay loyal to the taste of the cocktail,” adds Ileto. They also only use the leading premium brands for the mixes—no cheap substitues for Lickqueur.

“One more thing we had to consider during the taste tests was that people could tolerate the alcohol—not too much, not too little.” The flavor with the highest alcohol content (8 percent) is Screaming Orgasm, which has a mocha base; soon, they’ll be coming out with a 3 percent variant,  “for people with low tolerance.”

When they finally came up with the product they were satisfied with, “even her mentors were baffled,” says Ileto, referring to Gana’s teachers. “So we came up with more variants—Butterscotch Amaretto, Chocomint Martini—and in the last quarter of this year, we’re coming out with pops.” A “sugarfree” option would be pointless, she replies when asked about the diet-conscious, “because alcohol has sugar in it.”

And just how much does this sweetly sinful treat cost? P50 a scoop—which is far less than what you’d pay for a cocktail in a bar. A quart goes for P700, a pint for P375. Just make sure the containers are kept out of children’s reach.

For inquiries, call (2) 502-2700 or (917) 850-2702 or e-mail lickqueur@gmail.com.