ALBANY, NY -- It's been 10 years since a small dairy in in Boonville, N.Y.

by introducing legal wine ice cream. That is, ice cream made with wine.

Now, the state is poised to allow the production of beer and hard cider ice cream, too. A bill making its way through the state legislature in this final week of the 2018 session would allow beer and cider ice cream containing up to 5 percent alcohol.

The new bill simply adds the words "beer" and "cider" to the existing wine ice cream law.

Eagerly awaiting that law is Gilligan's Island, a diner and homemade ice cream shop in Sherburne, Chenango County. Like Mercer's Dairy, the Boonville company that lobbied for the wine ice cream law in 2008, Gilligan's is the advocate for beer and cider ice cream.

At Gilligan's, Brothers Andy and Mike Lagoe have been making and selling wine ice cream (using wine from Owera Vineyards in Cazenovia), and recently began experimenting with beer and cider. They intended to debut those flavors at the Taste of Syracuse earlier this month.

That's when they discovered that state law hasn't caught up to beer and cider ice cream. The beer ice cream was pulled from the Taste of Syracuse stand.

"So we've been in discussions to get this made legal as fast as we can," Andy Lagoe said. "We'd like to have it this summer, and we're hoping to bring it to the (New York) State Fair."

To develop the beer ice cream flavors, the Lagoe brothers have been working with brewmaster Micheal Coons at the Copper Turret Restaurant & Brewhouse in Morrisville. That's a teaching brewery affiliated with Morrisville State College.

"When you bite into it, we want you to know it's beer," Andy Lagoe said. "We know the science of ice cream, but we were looking for the science of blending the right beer flavors into the ice cream. Micheal and Morrisville have been very helpful with that."

Gilligan's has developed three flavors so far: Ice Cream Ale, made with a dark malty ale from the Copper Turret; Bavarian Chocolate, made with chocolate beer; and Double Buzz, made with coffee beer.

Gilligan's won't brew the beer itself, but will instead source the beer from local breweries. Both the Copper Turret and Good Nature Farm Brewery in Hamilton have worked with the Lagoes.

The bill in the state Senate is sponsored by Sen. James Seward, a Republican from Otsego County and the one in the Assemby by Bill Magee, a Madison County Democrat. The legislature session ends June 20.

And, yes, if it passes you will need to be 21 to enjoy legal beer ice cream.

Don Cazentre writes about craft beer, wine, spirits and beverages for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.