J.P. Licks Releasing Limited Edition Handel and Haydn Society Flavor

The Handel and Haydn Society turns 200 this year. To celebrate their bicentennial, another beloved Boston institution is saluting America’s oldest continuously operating arts society the best way they know how—with ice cream, of course.

J.P. Licks is adding a limited edition raspberry linzer flavor to its menu, billed in a release as a “butter-based ice cream with almond flavor, cake batter mix, and a hand ripple of raspberry sauce, with an outcome reminiscent of the classic torte with Austrian origins that Handel and Haydn might have enjoyed during their lifetimes.”

“H+H is proud to partner with J.P. Licks in this unique celebration of our Bicentennial,” Director of Bicentennial and Community Engagement Emily Yoder Reed said in a release. “This partnership is a perfect blend of two Boston icons.”

The first official account of ice cream in the New World was a letter written by a guest of Maryland Governor William Bladen in 1744—the same year Handel’s opera Semele was first performed in London, and Haydn turned 12.

In conjunction with the new flavor, the Handel and Haydn Society will perform two sets of a cappella works by Johann Sebastian Bach and early American composers at the J.P. Licks location at 659 Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, on August 6 at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.