Kapiti Melt & Co is an ice cream parlour at 3 MacLean St in Balclutha, South Otago, rated 4.6 across 393 Google reviews. The name nods to Kapiti, one of New Zealand's best-known real-dairy ice cream makers. Good ice cream is dense rather than airy, made with real milk and cream, and flavoured by the ingredients themselves rather than by essence. New Zealand scoop shops lean on that dairy heritage, with the hokey pokey classic sitting alongside seasonal fruit flavours like feijoa or berry. Torn between two, ask for a taste before you commit — most counters are happy to oblige — and note that the plainer-looking tubs often carry the most honest flavour. A sorbet is the go if you're avoiding dairy, and on a warm day a single scoop in a cone does the job nicely. Balclutha sits on the Clutha River amid South Otago dairy country, and ice cream rarely gets closer to the source than this.