Häagen-Dazs - Vanilla Swiss Almond

Vanilla Swiss Almond - Vanilla Ice Cream with Dark Chocolate Covered Almond Pieces

It is back to the basics for the first review after my trip to New York.  The Vanilla Swiss Almond flavor of Häagen-Dazs is probably the first pint of premium ice cream that I ever had.  Growing up with three siblings, my budget-minded parents usually bought ice cream in five-quart buckets of non-premium brands like Kemps or Land O' Lakes.  It was not until I was in high school or perhaps even college that I starting checking out the premium brands that came in pints.  Vanilla Swiss Almond is the perfect flavor for this transition.  It's not too crazy of a flavor, yet it still has a tasty mix-in.

The Häagen-Dazs brand was founded in New York City by Reuben and Rose Mattus in 1961.  The Mattus family had been in the business of selling lemon ices and ice cream sandwiches for a couple of generations but were having trouble competing price-wise against the newer mass-produced versions of those products which were showing up in grocery stores in the 1950s.  They decided to shift production to a heavier more premium ice cream which contained more butterfat and less air.  Looking to rebrand themselves, they made up a foreign sounding name: Häagen-Dazs.  They imagined that it was from Denmark -- they even put a map of Denmark on early cartons -- but the Danish language does not have an umlaut and the 'zs' digraph never appears in any Danish words.  No matter, the new brand was a big success and eventually spread nationwide.

On to the pint!  Removing the lid shows the white vanilla base with some of the chocolate mix-ins visible already.  Eating my way into the pint, the vanilla is quite tasty.   Häagen-Dazs does the base flavors extraordinarily well and their vanilla is no exception.  The mix-ins are the star of this pint, though.  The chocolate-covered almonds are dispersed liberally throughout the pint.  The chocolate coating completely covers the entire almond piece.  So smooth is the chocolate covering that the outside of these pieces look a bit like junior mints.  Its crunchy almond on the inside, though.  The pieces are of decent size, but they are not whole almond pieces.  They are quite good.  A jar of them would be good by themselves, but they are even better mixed into the vanilla ice cream.

As mentioned above, Vanilla Swiss Almond is a safe pick for people who like vanilla and do not want their mix-ins to be too crazy.   Its more than just that, though, it is also a great pint of ice cream in its own right.  In that regard, this still serves as a 'gateway flavor' into the realm of premium ice cream.