Like icy poles for adults: Melbourne gelaterias are liquoring up

News of a booze-free bar for consenting adults dominated food headlines last week, but gelaterias are returning serve with new liquor-laced iced treats.

In Brighton, Little Sky has teamed up with Adelaide Hills distillery Applewood to create a pastel-toned line-up of popsicles with flavours including a strawberry, watermelon, mint and gin sucker and a Brighton espresso martini, made with Applewood's coffee liqueur, Gippsland jersey cream and cacao nibs.

Piccolina is also working its RSA at the luxe new Swan Street store to deliver three cocktail-inspired granitas using Four Pillars gin. There is a take on the negroni, a limey southside and a pine-lime Singapore sling that adds in pomegranate juice and Bloody Shiraz gin.

In other news, the recent shutdown put Adam D'Sylva and Monika Frkovic's plans to open their Ivanhoe gelateria on ice for another month. In the meantime, however, you can get a first taste of Boca's confetti scoops at La Manna in Essendon Fields every Saturday. Stay tuned for the big opening, and some spiked iced treats of their own.