Tidbits: Food & Drink Activities This Week, January 11-18

Looking for something to do this week? Amid all the illness and cold weather, there are a few fun food and drink activities this week that are worth a closer look. Betty White-inspired ice cream, a new pass at Peter Piper Pizza, and new CBD mocktails at a trendy downtown bar top our list of this week’s tidbits.

Celebrate Betty White at Sweet Republic

Actress Betty White was an icon and a trailblazer with more than eight decades in front of the camera. Her passing so close to her 100th birthday came as a shock to her legion of fans. To honor her legacy, Sweet Republic locations in Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe will celebrate with a special flavor of ice cream based on an episode of “The Golden Girls,” the company recently announced in a press release.

In one episode of the show, Rose – played by White – prepares a St. Olaf friendship cake called “vanskapkaka” to win over a contentious co-worker.

“Want to see my vanskapkaka?” asks Rose.

“Only if I don’t have to show you mine,” replies Sophia.

Vanskapkaka really does means friendship cake in Swedish and resembles visiting cake, which is an actual Swedish dish. It’s that dish that inspires the new flavor of ice cream, called St. Olaf Friendship Cake. It is roasted almonds and vanilla cake in brown butter orange zest ice cream.

The flavor will be available for a limited time, according to the press release.

Peter Piper Pizza Unveils FunPass

Traditional game tokens and paper tickets used to play arcade games like Skee-ball and Smokin' Tokens, are now a thing of the past at Peter Piper Pizza, the restaurant chain announced recently. Tokens will be replaced by the new Peter Piper Pizza FunPass. With FunPass, guests can purchase a card to play games in the arcade and accumulate points to redeem for prizes during current or future visits without having to keep up with the old-style tokens and tickets.

The easy-to-use FunPass cards can also accumulate points to redeem for additional playing time or prizes either that same day or on a subsequent visit – meaning no more keeping track of tokens and paper tickets.

“We’ve listened to our loyal guests, and they told us they’d like it to be even easier to enjoy the Peter Piper Pizza play experience,” said Genaro Perez, vice president of marketing for Peter Piper Pizza. “For generations, families have been coming to Peter Piper Pizza to create memories over great food while having fun, and FunPass is an innovation that our guests will love.”

CBD Mocktails at Garden Bar PHX

One of downtown Phoenix’s newest bars is offering a selection of CBD mocktails through the end of the month. Best Dispensary in Mesa and Garden Bar PHX in downtown Phoenix have teamed up to present a series of dry January CBD mocktails available through the end of the month. According to a Garden Bar PHX press release, four CBD mocktails are now on the menu:

• Green Bee ($13): Free Spirit's Spirit of Gin, with pineapple, local honey, lemon, egg white, Best Dispensary's Nano CBD Tincture, and honeycomb.
• Cranberry Jubilee Highball ($13): A non-alcoholic riff on the classic cranberry jubilee. Made with Free Spirit’s Spirit of Gin, house-made cranberry spice syrup, fresh lime, Best Dispensary's CBD Nano tincture, and San Pellegrino flavored sparkling water.
• Spiritless Whiskey Slam ($13): A spirit-free whiskey cocktail – made with Kentucky 75 (whiskey alternative), Nopari (Campari alternative), fresh lemon and Best Dispensary’s CBD Nano tincture.
• Spicy Passionfruit Margarita ($13): A spirit-free Margarita with flavors of passionfruit. Made with salted citrus base and Free Spirit’s Spirit of Tequila, passionfruit and ginger, shaken with a dropper of Best Dispensary's CBD Nanotincture.