Graeter's - Mint Chocolate Chip

Mint Chocolate Chip - Peppermint Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips

Today's review is of Graeter's Mint Chocolate Chip flavor.  Loyal readers know that Mint Chocolate Chip is my favorite ice cream flavor.  Graeter's is the Cincinnati-based ice cream shop known for its 19th-century "french pot process".  Since Southern California is a long way from Ohio, it is not a brand carried in most grocery stores.  I've only been able to find it at Ralph's and even then I can usually only find two or three flavors of it in the freezer case.   Last week, I went a different Ralph's location than usual and was very pleased to find a pint of Mint Chocolate Chip -- so I scooped it up.

The pint's packaging features some green coloring, but removing the lid shows the color of the ice cream is white.  Graeter's follows the premium ice cream standard of avoiding the use of green food coloring in their mint ice creams.  Also visible on top are some of the chocolate chips.  As I ate my way into the pint, the mint flavor is quite delicious and had just the right strength.  The chocolate chips were excellent.  There have been chocolate chips in the previous two Graeter's flavors that I've reviewed but the chips came out beter in this pint.  I've read that there is some variability in the chips from pint to pint due to how the ice cream is made.  If you look at this video (around 40 seconds in), they actually pour liquid chocolate into the spinning french pots.  As the chocolate hardens, a paddle is used to break the chocolate up into smaller pieces.  There is another short video here.  The result from this method is chips of more variable size than if the chips were pre-crushed outside of the ice cream.  I got some small chips like what is visible on the very top but I also got a couple of chips that were quite large.  One was almost as big as the spoon.  It was fun, though.  The large chips were fairly soft and easy to bite into -- and delicious, too.

This was an excellent pint of ice cream.  Since its my favorite flavor, I like comparing all of the brands.  Before today, McConnnell's Mint Chip had been favorite, but this Graeter's pint is right up there and arguably better!  Graeter's has a more classic implementation, too, with its chunkier chips and white base.  This french-pot-process ice cream is thick stuff though.  I was very full at the end of the pint and skipped breakfast the next day.