Ample Hills - The Commodore

The Commodore - Salty Honey Ice Cream with Chocolate-Covered Potato Chip Clusters and Honeycomb Candy

We continue to work our way through Ample Hills' Taste of New York 4-pack.  Today's flavor is called The Commodore.  The flavor was created for their scoop shop on Vanderbilt Avenue in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.  Since it is on Vanderbilt Avenue, they named it in honor of "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt.  It turns out that Vanderbilt is associated with a popular urban legend pertaining to the origin of the potato chip.  The story goes that he was in a Saratoga hotel and send his fried potatoes back to the chef George Crum in the kitchen as they were too thick and had gotten too soggy.  Defiantly, Crum sliced them ultra-thin so they fried up extra crispy.  Vanderbilt liked the final result so much that the "potato chips" were added to the restaurant's menu and the rest is history.  There are some doubts as to the veracity of this urban legend but it is a fun story and a great excuse to base an ice cream flavor around a potato chip mix-in.  Along with the salty honey base and the honeycomb candy, this looks like an interesting pint.  I can't wait to dig in.

                                

The shipment came with a decorative postcard for The Commodore flavor.

Opening the pint shows the off-white yellow of the salted honey base with what looks like a bit of a caramel swirl -- or maybe that is honey because it is not listed..  With the first spoonful, it has a unique yet familiar flavor.  I was having trouble placing it.  The flavor of fortune cookies? or sugar cones? or perhaps honeycomb cereal?  I really liked it but I kept trying to figure out where I'd tasted that before.  Then there were the chocolate-covered potato-chip clusters.  You taste a little burst of salt each time you bite into it.  It doesn't sound like it is a great idea as an ice cream mix-in but it really is.  I have no seen it elsewhere since Ben & Jerry's discontinued its Late Night Snack flavor because the Jimmy Fallon flavor got "promoted" to the Tonight Dough.  More brands should feature potato chip mix-ins.  The ice cream was really thick with lots of mix-ins.  Holding it together was that salty caramel-ly honey swirl.  I scanned the ingredients to see if it was caramel or honey and I think it might be Lyle's Golden Syrup which is a honey substitute dating back to the nineteenth century.  It held the pint together really well.

This was one of the more memorable and successful pints I have reviewed here.  This checks all the boxes for what makes a pint interesting to me.   It has unique ingredients and mix-ins which I don't normally see yet it all came together in seemingly perfect ratios and it tasted amazing.  The saltiness was noticeable so perhaps drink a glass of water afterwards.  It's really too bad this is only available in the Vanderbilt Avenue scoop shop and by mail order.  Anyhow, if you are ever in that particular shop, this is the flavor to try.