I haven’t called the Kopp’s Frozen Custard in Glendale, Wisconsin, for years, but I still know the number: 414-961-2006.

As a kid, I’d call to get the “special flavor.” In my family, it was always the “special flavor,” never the “flavor of the day,” because the pedestrian tone of the latter phrase didn’t do justice to the greatest frozen dairy concoction ever invented.

According to local legend and corporate lore, German immigrant Elsa Kopp invented the very idea of a custard flavor of the day—now an industry standard—a decade after opening for business in a chocolate-and-vanilla world in 1950. By getting creative with custard flavors, Elsa and the rest of the Kopp family eventually grew the business to three locations and helped make frozen custard a staple around Milwaukee.

When I was growing up, we went out for ice cream probably once a week. By the time I was about ten, I recognized the shortcomings of Baskin-Robbins. A scoop of custard, as plain as it looked, offered far more pleasure than a clown cone, with its cheap decorations distracting from cheap ice cream. I wasn’t a kid anymore. I craved Kopp’s.

So I’d call that number most days to hear what the special flavor was, hoping at first for chocolate chocolate chip and eventually getting hip to more adult flavors like cherry amaretto cheesecake and chocolate peanut butter chocolate, a concoction so decadent that the website describes it simply as “Rich, rich, rich.” My all-time favorite now is chocolate truffel (their spelling), a vaguely boozy-tasting custard with chocolate flakes that I have planned entire road trips around.

And yes, there is a website now, making that phone number, which is still active, more or less obsolete. You can even sign up to get the month’s special flavors in advance via e-mail. I haven’t yet taken that step, but I do visit the Kopp’s website every time I’m going to Milwaukee, just to see if anything catches my eye.

Once, I encountered a family at Kopp’s whose attitude mirrored my inner desires in an almost comically perfect way. I could tell by their enthusiasm that they, too, had faced the angel-devil choice of ordering two scoops or three, or of throwing caution to the wind and having their special flavor delivered in a massive shake or turtle sundae. The dad had what I’ll affectionately call a “Wisconsin body”—I’ve got one, too—and he pointed to the counter as he walked in with his gaggle of kids, saying, “Make sure you get in her line! She scoops ’em real big!” I had to admire his skill. My experience with Kopp’s runs long and deep, but for years, I had failed to take notes on which employee had the heaviest scooping hand. And though the big-scoops line was a little longer, I made the move, happy to delay the pleasure in exchange for slightly more of it.