Izzy's - Dessa's Existential Crunch

Dessa Existential Crunch - Dark Brown Sugar and Creme Fraiche ice cream, flavored with Jameson Irish Whiskey and Disaronno Originale amaretto mixed with Praline Pecan pieces and a crunchy cashew brittle

For the last pint of 2016, I decided to stick with Izzy's for their Dessa's Existential Crunch flavor.  Izzy's created this flavor last month for a rooftop social in which the Minneapolis-born hip hop artist Dessa was performing.  Dessa herself helped in designing the flavor by providing Izzy with a list of her favorite types of snacks.  The name of the flavor reminds me of Dexy's Midnight Runners but listening to some of Dessa's songs on youtube, it doesn't sound anything like that.  The flavor itself has a large number of ingredients, a brown sugar base with two liqueurs added and with both praline pecans and cashew brittle mixed in.  It will be interesting to see how it all goes together.

Opening the pint reveals the light color of the brown sugar and creme fraiche base with plenty of the nutty mix-ins visible right away.  Eating my way into the pint, the base ice cream is delicious.  Brown sugar always makes for a good base flavor and creme fraiche in the mix just acts to make sure that it is not too strong.  The irish whiskey and amaretto are not really that distinctly noticeable but they do add a bit of complexity and some sweetness to the brown sugar flavor.  Amaretto is also an almond-based liqueur so that flavor might also blend in with the nut-based mix-ins.  Those nutty mix-ins are dispersed generously through the pint in small pieces and provide crunchy texture as well as candied nut flavor.  As with the liqueurs in the base, the nuts blended fairly well together and blended into the pint as well.  The result mixture was quite good even if I couldn't always make out all of the individual ingredients.  If you have a more sensitive palate than mine, you could challenge yourself to try and taste each ingredient instead of just enjoying the blend as I did.

All in all, a very successful pint.  For those that like brown sugar and nut flavors, then give this a try.