Jeni's - Goat Cheese with Red Cherries

Goat Cheese with Red Cherries - Goat Cheese Ice Cream with Roasted Sweet-Tart Cherries

We return to the Columbus-based Jeni's brand today for an interesting flavor: Goat Cheese with Red Cherries.  This is my first pint of ice cream which includes goat cheese, or as the French would say chèvre.  It got me curious.  What is the difference between goat cheese and cow cheese?  It is all about the milk.  Goat milk has a bit more fatty acids, which gives it a more tangy flavor.  Also, goat milk has a lot less protein which makes it more suitable for making it into a softer cheese instead of the wider varieties possible with cow cheese.  Jeni's gets its cheese from the Mackenzie Creamery in Hiram, Ohio.  I am quite curious to try this flavor.

On to the ice cream!  Removing the lid shows the off-white color of the goat cheese base with some dark red cherries visible right away.  They look like cherries which have been dried and then soaked in their own juice.  Digging in, the goat cheese is pretty good.  It is a bit like a cream cheese flavor but a bit softer and a hint of tangy-ness.  The cherries are quite good.  The chunks are fairly big and they were good.  Dried cherries marianating in their own juices is a good description of their flavor as well.  The combination worked well.  The tangy-ness of the cheese built up a little bit as I got to the bottom of the pint, but nothing major, it stayed quite flavorful.

This was a very interesting pint.  The flavor combinations were extremely well done as you expect from a super-premium brand like Jeni's.  The side of the pint bills it as being like a scoopable cherry cheesecake, but I got a bit of a savory vibe from it -- like it was more of a cherry and goat cheese plate.  Coolhaus' Balsamic Fig & Mascarpone also made me think of a cheese plate.  Completely different flavors there, but a similar savory appetizer vibe to it.  Anyhow, this Jeni's pint is a fun and experimental pint for me.  If you already love goat cheese, you'll like it even more.

  

New Orleans - Bananas Foster

Bananas Foster - Caramel Ice Cream with Banana Pieces, Nutmeg & Rum

We return to the New Orleans Ice Cream Company today.  I found a grocery store which stocks more of their flavors.  The flavor today is Bananas Foster.   As detailed in a previous review, Bananas Foster was invented by Paul Blange to serve to one of his favorite customer, Richard Foster, at Brennan's Restaurant in New Orleans in 1951, so it totally makes sense that a New Orleans-based ice cream brand would feature this flavor.  We'll see if the local brand can do it better.

Removing the lid shows a very light color to the caramel base.  Digging in, the banana flavor is evident sooner than the caramel.  I feel the small, pea-sized banana pieces in there as I am eating and they taste good.  I sense a bit of nutmeg and rum in the mix as well, neither one is very strong but they built up as I continued eating the pint.  When I got to the bottom of the pint, I got a bit of a surprise -- a significant amount of caramel sauce was sitting at the bottom of the pint.  So, the mildness of the caramel base is actually due to a mixing issue.  I wonder if I just got a bad batch or if this is a problem with all (or most) pint of this flavor.  It still tasted good, but it would have been better had the caramel been mixed or swirled throughout the whole pint.

A bit of an uneven pint here.  I do like the banana and the banana pieces but the caramel was not mixed in well and I prefer a bit more of a kick from both my spices (nutmeg) and my rum.  Not bad if it's all that is available, but I prefer the Coolhaus implementation.

  

Graeter's - Buckeye Blitz Chocolate Chip

Buckeye Blitz Chocolate Chip - Chocolate & Peanut Butter Ice Cream with Peanut Butter Cookie Dough and Chocolate Chips

Today we return to the Cincinnati-based Graeter's brand for another pint from their signature chip collection.   This pint is called Buckeye Blitz Chocolate Chip.  Graeter's is the brand that uses the old French pot process and makes amazing chocolate chips by pouring liquid chocolate into the mixing pots and then using a paddle to break up the chocolate as it hardens.  This pint is slightly different than the usual 'base flavor plus chocolate chip' combination of the signature chip line -- there is also peanut butter cookie dough in the mix to go along with the Buckeye theme.

A buckeye is a nickname for someone from Ohio -- where Graeter's is located.  It is most famously the nickname used by Ohio States sport teams.  It is also the name of a tree indigenous to the Ohio region which has these fairly distinctive looking nuts.  A buckeye is also the name of a candy which looks like lot like a buckeye nut.  This candy is made by partially dipping balls of peanut butter into chocolate so that some of the peanut butter core is still exposed.  This candy is the basis for this ice cream flavor.  Chocolate and peanut butter have always been a winning flavor combination so I am looking foward to trying this.

Opening the pint, there is a bit of a pocket of air on the top.  Not much of a concern.  Just a small reminder that these Graeter's pints are hand packed from small batches.  Some chips are visible right away on the top.  With the first spoonful, the base ice cream is quite good.  It looks like a chocolate base but there is a bit of peanut butter blended in as well.  The resulting homogeneous flavor is very appealing.  The cookie dough mix-ins are relatively small but quite noticeable when you bit into them.  Peanut butter cookie dough is a great mix-in as it tastes just like peanut butter but it is a bit sweeter and is easier to chew.  The famous chocolate chips are also present.  Perhaps not quite as many as usual since there is a second mix-in present but that may vary from batch to batch.

This is another successful Graeter's pint.  The smooth chocolate/peanut butter blend in the base reminded me a bit of the Ben & Jerry's/Target Peanut Butter World flavor but there are extra mix-ins here and the buckeye theme is fun.  I recommend it to those who like chocolate, peanut butter and Graeter's.  I'll be on also be on the lookout for their simpler Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip flavor to see how it compares.

  

Jeni's - Middle West Whiskey & Pecans

Middle West Whiskey & Pecans - Middle West Spirits Whiskey Ice Cream with Crunchy, Salty, Toasted Pecans

We return to the Columbus-based Jeni's brand for their Middle West Whiskey & Pecans flavor.  When I first saw the name of the flavor, I figured it was a reference to the fact that Ohio is considered part of the midwest, but it turns out that Middle West Spirits is a brand of whiskey made in the Columbus area.  The Middle West distillery was founded in 2008 and they have been partnering with Jeni's for several years.  The partnership also results in an egg nog flavor -- perhaps a seasonal flavor because it is currently unavailable.  I am looking forward to checking this out.

Opening the pint shows that the base ice cream is an off-white beige color with hints of mix-ins that are present below.  The whiskey flavor is quite noticeable in the first spoonful.  It is a sweet whiskey as opposed to the type of bourbon whiskey which provides a bit of a burn in the back of your throat.  As far as sweet whiskeys go, it is not as sweet as Häagen-Dazs' Bourbon Praline Pecan which had extra brown sugar in it creating an almost candy-like whiskey experience.  The pint here was a bit more balanced.  The Jeni's flavor page says there are also "notes of butterscotch, honey, coconut, and vanilla" blended into the base.  I don't know if I could pick out each of those, but I appreciate that Jeni Britton Bauer uses great care when concocting her flavor mixes.  The pecan mix-ins were evenly distributed throughout the pint and were quite good.

I very much enjoyed this pint.  Whiskey & pecans is one of the more common flavor combinations and this is one of the better implementations.  To compare to other brands, McConnell's uses a whiskey that creates a mild burn in the back of your throat and also had a few more pecans. Häagen-Dazs has a sweet whiskey.  I liked it, but it may be a bit too sweet for some.  Jeni's provides a more balanced sweet whiskey flavor that you might expect from a super-premium brand.  Check it out if you can find it.  

  

McConnell's - Turkish Coffee

Turkish Coffee - Coffee Ice Cream with Crushed Espresso Beans

Today is yet another pint from the Santa Barbara-based McConnell's brand.  Today's flavor is Turkish Coffee.  What makes a coffee Turkish?  I looked it up and it is a way of making unfiltered coffee.  Ground coffee and sugar are added to the water before it is slowly boiled and the grounds are left in the cup while you drink it.  It will be interesting to see how this translates into a pint of ice cream.

Removing the lid shows... well look a the picture below.  It looks like a cup of sand!  The coffee ice cream is brown and there are so many small pieces of crushed espresso beans that it gives the ice cream a sandy texture.  Tasting the ice cream, the coffee flavor is fairly potent as you would expect.  The crushed beans were surprisingly tasty.  They were for me at least.  I must confess that I'm not a coffee drinker (I don't like drinking hot liquids) but I do occasionally steal a single coffee bean from the grocery store dispensers and chew on it while I shop.  The beans here reminded me of that taste.  With all of this coffee, it was not overwhelmingly strong.  Some flavors are designed to overdose the coffee junkies while this is just good coffee flavor. 

This is a good pint of coffee ice cream.  The coffee base with non-chunky fine-grained coffee bean mix-ins is a good idea which I haven't seen before.  Haagen-Dazs did a chocolate version of that with their Belgian Chocolate flavor which was also fun.  Coffee-lovers should check this out.

  

McConnell's - Banana & Salted Caramel

Banana & Salted Caramel - Banana Ice Cream with Salted Caramel Sauce

After finishing the Melting Pot Collection, the McConnell's kick continues.  Banana & Salted Caramel is a new flavor this year which I had not been able to find in grocery stores so I added it to my Melting Pot Collection shipment.  I like banana, so I am looking forward to checking this out.

Removing the lid shows the light color of the banana base with quite a bit of caramel visible right away.  As I dig in, there is quite a bit of banana flavor right away in the first spoonful.  In the past, I have talked about two different types of banana flavors -- the sweet flavor of a banana pudding and the more earthy flavor of a banana bread.  This is almost a different version.  It reminds me of an overripe banana but since it is blended into the ice cream, it doesn't have the unpleasant texture.  I guess it is like uncooked banana bread batter, but perhaps a bit stronger.  The swirl is a caramel 'sauce' and not the typical syrupy caramel.  The side of the container tells me that sauce is made with sweetened condensed milk and it does have a bit of a dulce de leche feel to it.  It is still caramel, but in my mind I am picturing a spectrum of possible caramel concoctions and this sauce is a couple of ticks in the dulce de leche direction.  There was a little bit of salt in the sauce but it was not strong enough to make you thirsty.

I enjoyed this pint.  I liked the ripe banana flavor and the caramel sauce went very well with it.  Many banana-themed pints have chocolate mix-in, but not here.  It reminded me a bit of a bananas foster flavor but without the rum.  A good addition to the McConnell's line.  I hope it sticks around.

  

McConnell's - Rosewater & Pistachio

Rosewater & Pistachio - Rosewater flavored Ice Cream with Pistachios

Today is the fourth and final pint of the McConnell's Melting Pot Collection: Rosewater Pistachio.  This is the second flavor in the collection to include a floral flavor - the previous was Hibiscus Lime.  Rose water is one of the most common floral flavors.  It is commonly used in the Middle East and India.  Many recipes for Turkish delight, marzepan, baklava and rice pudding include rose water.  Pairing it with pistachio seems appropriate as that is a nut which is also used as a common ingredient in this region.  This combination looks interesting and I am looking forward to trying it out.

Removing the lid shows the very light pink flavor of the rosewater base.  With the first spoonful, the flavor is fairly light -- the smell is more noticeable than the taste.  It is good, though.  Quite refreshing.  The pistachios are generously mixed in and they taste quite good.  The two flavors complement each other quite well.  If rosewater is paired with something, it should be a nut.  Chocolate would overwhelm it.  Perhaps caramel?  I'm not sure, but pistachio works great.

I really enjoyed this pint.  I'm glad I got it in time, as it is sold out already!  If you can find a scoop shop that still has it in stock, then try it out.  I don't know how often these limited edition craft flavors end up getting promoted to regular flavors but Rosewater & Pistachio is a good candidate for that.

This concludes the survey of the Melting Pot Collection.  The Masala Chai Dates & Walnut was my favorite, then this Rosewater & Pistachio, then the Hibiscus Lime and the Mexican Chocolate Sorbet.

  

McConnell's - Mexican Chocolate Sorbet

Mexican Chocolate Sorbet - Chocolate Sorbet with Hints of Vanilla, Espresso and Cinnamon

Today is pint three of the McConnell's Melting Pot Collection.  The flavor is Mexican Chocolate Sorbet.  From previous reviews, we know that a sorbet is dairy free -- it is basically flavoring, sugar and ice.  The flavor of sorbet is usually a fruit juice which makes it a lot like a frozen slushie.  It is not uncommon, though, to have a Chocolate Sorbet.  Chocolate contains cocoa butter (which not dairy) so it can provide a bit of its own creaminess.  Indeed, I have reviewed a pint of chocolate sorbet before.  The 'mexican' qualifier on the chocolate means that it has a bit of spice added.  I have reviewed a pint of mexican chocolate before as well.  I am looking forward to trying this out.

Removing the lid shows that the chocolate sorbet is extremely dark -- almost black!  There is no milk or cream to lighten up the color.  Digging in, the sorbet is very dense and quite tough.  Some that I think is due to the dry-ice treatment before and during shipping.  I left the pint out for several minutes first, but it was still hard to get the spoon through.  The sorbet is very chocolatey with a noticeable hint of cinnamon but it was not too strong.  It was flavorful.  As I ate my way further down into the pint, I did notice the espresso every once in a while, otherwise it was chocolate with a mild cinnamon accent.  As it softened up, it got a little slushy and at the bottom of the pint, I was quite full.  A flavor like this is probably better a scoop at a time.

I think this is a well-done pint of chocolate sorbet.  Lots of chocolate and very dense.  I would have preferred the cinnamon to be a little stronger.  I was a bit surprised that it was not spicier after the super-flavorful Masala Chai flavor from last time.  Also, I think I'm not really a chocolate sorbet type of guy.  I like a chocolate dairy mix.  For that reason and for having more spice, I prefer Steve's Mexican Chili Chocolate to this flavor.  Still, if you are more of a chocolate sorbet person than me and find yourself a McConnell's scoop shop then give this flavor a sample.  It is quite chocolatey.