Ice cream shop creates rocky road flavor to combat pot holes in Michigan

This rocky-road ice cream update has a purpose. (Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream)

If you like bumps in your ice cream-- not in the road—Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream of Shelby, Michigan has the perfect flavor for you.

Michigan Pot Hole ice cream is being touted as a “thick, black-tar fudge in chocolate ice cream with chunks of chocolate asphalt.”

But this tongue-in-cheek flavor isn’t out to just put a smile of the face of those craving something sweet.  It aims to make Michigan drivers grin, too.

Ashby’s Sterling will donate 1 percent of sales from the new ice cream flavor to the state to help fund much-needed road repairs.

"We're looking at another brutal pothole season affecting state and local roads,"  Michigan Department of Transportation communications director Jeff Cranson told the Detroit Free Press. "If eating ice cream can help fund repairs, why not?"

Cranson, who says he was amused by the idea, admitted that the flavor “sounds pretty good.”

The unusually cold winter has made a mess of Michigan's roads and some potholes are so dangerous that police and city officials in Macomb County want drivers to report them to 911.

Money raised by the local ice cream parlor will be given directly to the Michigan State Trunkline Fund that fund roadworks. In the past, MDOT has only received a few donations and in “very small amounts,” according to Cranson.

On May 5, Michigan leaders will vote on a new state sales tax—from 6 to 7 percent—in order to raise $1.3 billion for the state’s down trodden freeways and bridges. Lawmakers have also proposed raising gas prices to raise money.

In the meantime, Ashby’s contributions will be a small—but tasty—addition to the transportation department’s budget.