Photo courtesy of Fabled Ice Cream
Fabled Ice Cream was founded by Alexandria bookstore owner Ally Kirkpatrick.
Old Town Books founder Ally Kirkpatrick has launched a new venture, Fabled Ice Cream, a storytelling-inspired ice cream company based in Alexandria.
Each flavor is rooted in a book, character or literary moment, bringing stories to life through nostalgic, high-quality ice cream. Fabled Ice Cream blends literature, community and food into one experience, where there’s a story in every scoop!
Fabled Ice Cream releases limited batches of pints through weekly drops, creating a sense of anticipation and discovery around each release. Customers can sign up at hotplate.com/fabledicecream to receive notifications when new drops go live, ensuring they don’t miss out on small-batch flavors and returning favorites. Each drop keeps the menu fresh and gives customers a reason to come back week after week.
Kirkpatrick is the founder of Old Town Books, a community-driven independent bookstore in Alexandria, and is the creator of Fabled Ice Cream. After building a bookstore known for its events, partnerships and strong local following, she began experimenting with ice cream as a way to extend storytelling beyond the page.
What started as recipe-testing in her kitchen quickly became a new venture focused on literary-inspired flavors, clean ingredients and community-centered experiences. Fabled Ice Cream reflects her belief that small businesses can create meaningful gathering spaces, whether through books, events, or something as simple as a scoop of ice cream on a summer night.
Fabled Ice Cream began with curiosity. After years of building Old Town Books into a thriving community hub, Ally found herself drawn to a new kind of storytelling, one that could be tasted, shared, and experienced in a different way. Ice cream became the medium. What started as small-batch experimentation evolved into a clear vision: an ice cream brand rooted in narrative, nostalgia, and connection.
Each Fabled flavor is inspired by literature, from classic novels to modern favorites. Names, ingredients and textures are designed to reflect the tone and feeling of the story behind them, so a scoop becomes more than dessert. It becomes a conversation, a memory or a moment of discovery. Built first as a pop-up concept, Fabled Ice Cream is growing intentionally through community events, partnerships and small-scale launches while working toward a permanent neighborhood scoop shop designed to feel as welcoming and story-rich as a favorite bookstore.
Fabled stands out through its story-driven approach to flavor, its focus on clean, high-quality ingredients including natural colors and premium dairy, and its foundation in an already established community space through Old Town Books. It brings together literature and food in a way that feels both nostalgic and new, creating an experience that goes beyond the product itself.
Signature Flavors
• Wuthering Bites is a deep brown butter ice cream with crunchy Heath(cliff) toffee pieces, inspired by the enduring pull of a dark, moody classic.
• Jane Eyre Grey is an Earl Grey tea ice cream with lavender and lemon zest.
• Wilbur’s Blue Ribbon is a cotton candy ice cream colored naturally with spirulina and finished with a white chocolate shell, a playful a nod to Charlotte's Web.
Fabled Ice Cream currently releases small-batch pints through weekly drops, offering a rotating menu of literary-inspired flavors that change monthly. These drops are complemented by special pop-up events and community collaborations, where customers can experience Fabled in person. The combination of limited pint releases and in-person events keeps the brand dynamic, with each drop and pop-up offering something new to discover.
The long-term vision is to open a permanent scoop shop that serves as a gathering place for the neighborhood, where books, storytelling, and ice cream come together in a space designed for connection and return visits.
Boilerplate
Fabled Ice Cream is a storytelling-inspired ice cream company founded by Old Town Books owner Ally Kirkpatrick, known for literary-themed flavors and a community-first approach, creating small-batch ice cream designed to bring stories to life one scoop at a time.
