Grand Ole Creamery - North Country Crunch

North Country Crunch - Light Chocolate Malt Ice Cream with Heath Toffee and Roasted Almonds

Shopping around for the new flavors released this spring, I saw some pints from the Grand Ole Creamery in a freezer case.  I have not had a pint from them in a while.  So I picked up a pint of North Country Crunch.  The side of the container has the following description:  "Imagine that first step in light fluffy snow in the MN Moose Country.  Smooth and crunchy, North Country Crunch is a light chocolate malted ice cream perfectly complimented by Heath toffee pieces and roasted almonds.  A truly delightful combination."  They had me at Moose Country.  Should be a fun flavor.

Opening the pint, the light chocolate malt base is indeed quite light colored.  Looking at the ingredients, the base includes both chocolate and vanilla.  Often those two are swirled, but this is the first time I've seen them fully blended into a 'light chocolate'.  Digging in, I could taste the chocolate, vanilla and also the malt.  There was something a little odd about the base flavor.  It might have been the malt.  I am not really into malt flavor that much, so that could have been it.  The toffee pieces and almonds were distributed throughout the pint.  They were small, but crunchy and tasty.

I was a little disappointed by this pint.  The mix-ins were decent, but the light chocolate malt base did not agree with me.  Maybe if you really like malt, you'll like this better than me, but for now my favorite Grande Ole Creamery flavor is still Black Hills Gold.