Ice pop

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A green ice pop

An ice pop is a frozen water dessert on a stick that is colored and flavored. It is made by freezing colored, flavored liquid (such as fruit juice) around a stick. Once solid, the stick is then used as a handle to hold the ice pop. In Ireland the term "ice pop" is used, but it is usually called an ice lolly (some regions lolly ice). In the United Kingdom the term ice lolly is used for frozen dessert on a stick and (as in Dominica) the term ice pop is used for frozen dessert with no stick, usually sold in plastic sleeves - eaten by biting off a small corner of the sleeve and sucking on the ice. Ice block is used in Australia and New Zealand, and icy pole in Australia (from the brand name Icy Pole). In the United States and Canada it is almost always called a popsicle due to the early popularity of the Popsicle brand, and the word has become a genericized trade mark to mean any ice pop, irrespective of brand.

The first recorded ice pop was created in 1905 by 11-year-old Frank Epperson in San Francisco, who left a glass of soda water powder and water outside in his back porch with a wooden mixing stick in it. That night the temperature dropped below freezing, and when Epperson returned to the drink the next morning, he found that the soda water had frozen inside the glass, and that by running it under hot water, he was able to remove (and eat) the frozen soda water chunk using the stick as a handle.^[1]

The ice-lollipop was introduced to the public for the first time at an Oakland ball for firemen in 1922. In 1923, Epperson applied for a patent for "frozen ice on a stick" called the Epsicle ice pop, which he re-named the Popsicle, allegedly at the instigation of his children. This brand is now one of the most famous in the United States.

[edit] World record

On June 22, 2005, Snapple tried to beat the existing Guinness Book of World Records entry of a 1997 Dutch 21-foot ice pop by attempting to erect a 25-foot ice pop in New York. The 17.5 tons of frozen juice, that had been brought from Edison, New Jersey in a freezer truck, where the ice pop was made, melted faster than expected dashing hopes of a new record and instead causing pedestrians to seek higher ground as firefighters hosed away the kiwi-strawberry-flavored mess.^[2]