Denver's five best ice cream parlors

Sweet Cow

Sweet Cow, 637 Front Street, Louisville
This Louisville-based store is a micro-batch-focused shop that starts with cream, sugar and natural flavorings and creates a lineup of indulgences that are close-your-eyes good: thick and velvety, bursting with gooey swirls and crunchy accoutrements, and so creamy they're practically buttery. We're into the apple pie, the robust Ozo coffee and the sweet corn, but we'll basically eat a scoop of anything that comes from Sweet Cow.

Glacier Ice Cream

1. Glacier Ice Cream, 4760 Baseline Road, Boulder
This Boulder-based outfit makes celestial ice cream, churning cream and sugar into sweet, silky confections, some of them studded with tiny bits of cake or candy. You can find more popular flavors packaged up at several retail shops around town -- or offered on many restaurant dessert lists -- but it's worth heading straight to the source. The Glacier Homemade Ice Cream shop scoops a variety of frequently rotated creations into cups or cones; our favorites include the caramel Oreo, spicy chai, Junior Mint and dulce de leche. Glacier also partners with other purveyors -- including local brewers, cake-makers and restaurants -- to turn out special seasonal one-offs. The frequent collaborations with Kim & Jake's Cakes, a Boulder bakery, are particularly dreamy. And that's what earned the shop our Best Ice Cream award in Best of Denver 2012.

Honorable mentions go to Skoops Ice Cream & More and Coaches Scoop Frozen Desserts.

Have another favorite? Tell us about it below.

More Best of Denver® 2012 Lists:

- Denver's ten best new restaurants

- Denver's five best seafood restaurants

- Denver's ten best Italian restaurants

- Denver's five best Japanese restaurants

All of these lists are also available on our Best of app; see it in action at http://bestof.voiceplaces.com/denver-boulder.