Ben & Jerry's - It's Ice... Cream

It's Ice... Cream - Caramel Malt Ice Cream with Almond Toffee Pieces, Fudge Fish & Caramel Swirl

Last fall, Ben & Jerry's announced a new "secret stash" program where special pre-packaged pints would be available only for online purchase and from their scoop shops freezer cases.  The first flavor, sponsored by Jimmy Fallon, was called Marshmallow Moon.  Last week, we finally got word of a second pint in the series, Phish's It's Ice... Cream.  This is another flavor named for the Vermont-based jam band Phish -- the other being the long-running and still amazing Phish Food flavor.  The specific name of this flavor is a reference to a call of Phish's 1993 Rift album called "It's Ice".  For the artwork on the side of the carton, they commissioned long-time Phish illustrator James Pollack.  They have an interview with Pollack featured on their website.  The artwork looks pretty cool and gives a certain Phish legitimacy to the flavor which I think their fans would enjoy.  What is actually in the ice cream (or should I say ice... cream)?  It's is a caramel malt base with almond toffee pieces and fudge fish.  The fudge fish and caramel swirl are the same one as Phish Food, but the rest of the pint is completely different.  Enough talk, let's dig in!

Opening the pint, the caramel malt base is beige in color and the caramel swirl and a few of the almond toffee pieces are visible right away.  Digging in, the malt in the base serves to mute the caramel.  Unlike the recent series of salted caramel flavors, the purpose of the base here is to serve as a vehicle for the swirl and the mix-ins.  The almond toffee pieces are sweet and crunchy.  They mind me a bit of a crushed praline pecans -- except of course that they are candied almonds instead of candied pecans.  I don't think I've seen this type of mix-in from Ben & Jerry's before.  I like it.  It is sweet, though.  I can see why they decided to mute the caramel base with malt.  The caramel swirls is gooey and flavorful.  This swirl sticks out much more than the similar swirl in Phish Food which gets overpowered by all the chocolate.  Here, the caramel is front and center and it goes quite well with the almond toffee.  The fudge fish are in the mix as well.  Hard and chunky, these are the same fish that are included in Phish Food.  These provide a bit of chocolate flavor, but not as much as you'd think because they are so hard.  That's OK though, the focus of the flavor here is primarily on the caramel and the toffee.

This is a solid secret stash flavor from Ben & Jerry's.  It is an fun caramel toffee combination which I don't think I've seen before.  The closest I can find is a Tillamook pint which had a softer toffee.  Most of the other caramel toffee combinations feature coffee or a lot more chocolate.  If a combination of caramel and crunchy candied almonds sounds good to you, run down to your local Ben & Jerry's scoop shop to check this out.