We Found the Ultra-Pricey Ice Cream Maker Lorelai Gilmore Got as a Wedding Gift. (She Should Have Kept It.)

Published August 15, 2023

A scene from Gilmore Girls, in which Lorelai Gilmore, Rory Gilmore, and Sookie St. James open a box revealing a Lello 4080 Musso Lussino ice cream maker. — Photo: Warner Bros.

Alexander Aciman is an editor who has written about pasta-making, running gear, and Wirecutter picks he has spotted on TV shows.

Even 20 years after the episode’s original air date, fans and chronic re-watchers of Gilmore Girls have all probably asked themselves the same question at some point: Who gave Lorelai the ice cream maker?

In the show’s second season, when a Lello 4080 Musso Lussino—a longtime Wirecutter pick—arrives at Lorelai’s home just weeks after she’s called off her wedding, Sookie, Rory, and Lorelai all stand staring at the gleaming, spaceship-like appliance (shown in the scene above), unsure exactly who sent it. There is no note, no card, no return address.

Lorelai is dead set on finding out who sent it, but the gift-giver's identity remains a mystery, and Lorelai ultimately gives the appliance away. But we think she should have kept it.

Upgrade pick

Lello 4080 Musso Lussino

The best of the best

This premium, stainless steel compressor model churns out flawless, creamy, gelato-like ice cream. But it’s especially heavy and pricey.

Buying Options

$626 from Amazon

$700 from Sur La Table

Why we love the Lello 4080 Musso Lussino

The Lello 4080 Musso Lussino is the best home ice cream maker you can buy, and it has been our upgrade pick since 2015.

“It delivers gelato-like, fancy-ice-cream-parlor ice cream at home. The texture is smooth, stretchy, and silky,” said Mace Dent Johnson, the author of our ice cream maker guide.

And it’s fast. The Musso Lussino can churn out completely crystal-free ice cream in half the time of its competitors (12 to 15 minutes, versus the average 20 to 30 minutes). Its robust-yet-sleek stainless steel body flawlessly produced the best ice cream of any machine we tested. In short, as our guide reports, it’s a pricey machine for people who want “the absolute best of the best.”

It’s not hard to imagine which flavors might have been dreamed up by a Gilmore-owned Musso Lussino—blueberry pancakes, Red Vines, coffee, Christmas apple tart.

The downsides

The one flaw of the Musso Lussino is its fixed bowl. It has to be wiped out with a damp cloth or a sponge, which makes it somewhat harder to clean and which, admittedly, is something Lorelai might not have had the patience for.

And, yes, it costs hundreds of dollars, which is a dealbreaker for many. This is what makes it a great wedding gift for someone who has the money to spend, since the recipient would likely never spend it on themselves (if you're engaged, why not put it on your own wedding registry?).

For anyone experiencing sticker shock, we have several excellent picks that cost significantly less, like our top pick Cuisinart ICE-21.

The gift-giver revealed

So, who would spend that kind of money? Someone with uncompromising standards and a love for Italian opulence. Someone who can’t stand the thought of a loved one eating ice cream for dinner, but if they must it had better be gelato. Someone who burdens the people in their life with gifts priced far beyond what is ordinarily considered acceptable. And someone who knows Lorelai well enough to understand that if she knew who’d given it to her, she wouldn’t use it, no matter how much she may have wanted to.

The answer, of course, is Emily.

This article was edited by Annemarie Conte and Elissa Sanci.

Meet your guide

Alexander Aciman

Alexander Aciman is an editor for Wirecutter’s discovery team. He has worked as a journalist and on documentary film projects, and he has also worked as a screenwriter for Amazon and Lionsgate. When he’s not working, you can probably find him bird watching, running, or making pasta.