Ben & Jerry's - Chocolate Cherry Garcia

Chocolate Cherry Garcia - Chocolate Ice Cream with Cherries and Fudge Flakes

Last year, Ben & Jerry's had a scoop-shop only promotion called "Flavor Flips" where they would take a classic flavor and change it up a bit.  The first flavor flip was Totally Baked which was like Half Baked, but instead of brownies and cookie dough, was made with brownies and cookies.  The next was Tubby Hubby is like Chubby Hubby but it uses a peanut butter base to make it extra indulgent.  The next flavor is Chocolate Cherry Garcia which is like Cherry Garcia except that it uses a chocolate base instead of a cherry base.  For this last flavor, they've made it available outside scoop shops as a limited batch pint.   Looks interesting.  I'll reread review of the original flavor and see how this twist compares.

Removing the lid shows a chocolate base.  Some of the fudge flakes and cherry pieces are visible right away on top as well.  With the first spoonful, I immediately taste the cherry flavor in the chocolate base.  It seems like the juice in the cherry mix-ins has diffused outward and permeated the entirety of the chocolate base.  It reminded me a bit of Cherry Coke, its brown in color but the cherry accent really sticks out.  My first thought was that perhaps the chocolate base served to dilute the cherry flavor but I remember the cherry base in the classic flavor was relatively mild.  The diffusion of cherry flavor from the mix-ins here has me wondering if you could mimic the level of cherry-ness in the classic flavor by having a sweet cream base infused with cherry mix-ins.  Anyways, it was quite good.   The fudge flakes and cherry pieces were distributed liberally throughout the pint.  They were the same as in the traditional flavor.  The flakes were shaped like little chocolate bars and were chunky rather than crumbly in texture.  The cherry pieces were soft and flavorful.

All in all this was a successful pint.  I think it was about as good as the classic flavor, but I'm not a total Cherry Garcia junkie.  I am curious to know how the fans who have made Cherry Garcia one of the most popular ice cream flavors for three decades think of this.  It is a limited batch, so they should try it while supplies last.