culture@dailylobo.com
Albuquerque’s favorite crystal drug is hitting the streets again — this time on top of a fluffy, hand-crafted doughnut.
The “crank”-topped doughnut features blue rock-candy crystals, and is subtly flavored like cotton candy.
This is Rebel Donut’s famous “Breaking Bad” Blue-Sky doughnut.
After a short return to a career in architecture, owner Carrie Mettling — the creator of Cake Fetish Cupcakes — opened the shop in June of this year. But despite being a new business, Rebel Donut has already developed an enormous following on Urbanspoon.com because of its unusual doughnut flavors, such as maple bacon and orange Tang. But Mettling said the meth doughnut is what the shop is known for.
“It was made as kind of a joke,” Mettling said. “But it actually turned out to be a really good seller, and we make it every day now.”
Although Mettling got bored with her architecture desk job, she said she used her expertise to build the shop from the ground up.
After a long struggle to find an available retail space, she and her husband personally designed, built and decorated everything in the shop.
“We put our kids to bed at night, then came here and swung hammers,” she said.
All of Mettling’s hard work is not only evident in the store’s appearance, but in the doughnuts as well. Innovation is a very big part of the shop, and Mettling said she encourages people to come to her with new ideas. Employees constantly come up with new flavors; on Tuesday, they were making Pineapple-Upside-Down doughnuts for the first time.
“I credit my employees for being really fun,” she said. “Literally every day we’ve been open, there’s been a new experiment in the case.”
Store manager Marcy Penn wakes up every morning at 2 a.m. to drive from her home in Moriarty so she can get to the store by 4 a.m. Penn said the drive is worth the amount of freedom and creativity working at Rebel Donut permits. She said the store’s open approach to flavors is what sets the shop apart from Dunkin’ Donuts and other chains.
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“They’re not anywhere in our ballpark. We have the weird flavors,” Penn said. “Dunkin’ wouldn’t do that.”
UNM student and frequent Rebel Donut patron Robin Jones also said that doughnut chains can’t compete with the unique creations the bakery has to offer.
“I think they’re honestly better quality doughnuts,” she said. “How often do you get a doughnut that has Lucky Charms on it?”
With only two months of operation under the store’s belt, Mettling said she hopes Rebel Donut will continue to gain momentum. She said that customers have a lot of cool fall flavors to look forward to in the next couple of months, such as pumpkin and spice-themed doughnuts.
Mettling said sometimes customers are so excited over new doughnut flavors, they can’t control their reactions.
“(People) walk up and down and start clapping in front of the case,” she said.
Rebel Donut
2435 Wyoming Blvd. N.E.
7 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
(505) 293-0553
