Ben & Jerry's - Mint Chocolate Cookie

Mint Chocolate Cookie - Peppermint Ice Cream with Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Today we review an old standby, Mint Chocolate Cookie.  This was the first flavor of Ben & Jerry's that I ate regularly.  For several years, this was the only Ben & Jerry's flavor that I ate.  This was back when I was less adventurous and didn't even look at all the other flavors with weird names in the Ben & Jerry's section of the freezer.  

Mint Chocolate Cookie was created in 1991 as "Mint with Oreo Cookies".  After Nabisco was acquired by RJReynolds, Ben & Jerry's wanted to distance themselves from Big Tobacco so they unbranded the flavor and switched to a generically implemented sandwich cookie.

This is a simple hybrid flavor of Mint Chocolate Chip (or Peppermint Bon Bon as I knew it growing up in Minnesota) and Cookies and Cream.  It is a very successful mix and has been done elsewhere.  I believe Dairy Queen often has a "Mint Oreo" Blizzard.

Opening the pint, you first thing you notice is the white color of the base.  The green color of most mint ice creams is done with artificial food coloring.  I guess natural white mint ice cream is becoming more common these days.  Then you also see small black cookie pieces blended into the base with a couple of larger pieces visible on top.  As you dig into the pint, you notice the strong mint flavor right away, a very bright mint flavor which is strong enough to clear the nasal passages at first but not so strong that it becomes too overwhelming as you get to the bottom of the pint.  The large cookie pieces become more numerous as you dig deeper into the pint.  In fact, there were a couple of pieces down near the bottom which were quite large -- almost full cookies. 

Even though I have since graduated to more exotic flavors, I still enjoy this oldie-but-goodie.