Humphry Slocumbe - Secret Breakfast

Secret Breakfast - Bourbon Ice Cream with Cornflake Cookies

I decided to try a new brand!  Humphry Slocombe is not available to be in local grocery stores, but I they have national shipping from both Amazon and Goldbely and they have gotten some good reviews.  Humphry Slocombe opened it's first scoop shop in San Francisco's Mission District in 2008.  The founder is Jake Godby who is a celebrated pastry chef in the Bay Area.  The shop quickly grew a reputation for having fun and eclectic flavors as noted by this write-up in the New York Times Magazine several years ago.  Where does the brand get its name?  I guess Mr. Humphries and Mrs. Slocombe were the main characters on the classic British sitcom Are You Being Served?.  That's fun.  Anyhow, the selection and shipping costs seemed reasonable the last time I looked so I pulled the trigger.

The first flavor I'm trying is called Secret Breakfast which is their most famous and popular flavor.  It is a bourbon ice cream with corn flake cookie mix-ins.  Checking my tags on the right sidebar, bourbon and whiskey are becoming trendy ice cream ingredients these days, but I think Humphry Slocombe was a very early entry on the bourbon bandwagon in the late 00s.  Their online menu still says "yes, bourbon" to note the novelty of the ingredient.

Opening the pint shows an off-white golden color to the bourbon base.  A couple of the cookie mix-ins are visible too.  Digging in, I immediately taste the bourbon flavor.  This is a sweet bourbon as opposed to the kick-in-the-back-of-your-throat bourbon -- I have noticed both kinds in previous reviews.  It is not too sweet though.  It tastes quite good.  Soon I encounter the cookie mix-ins and they are delicious.  Cornflakes and sugar make for a surprisingly potent combination.  I have had a few desserts with this combination and the first few bites are always amazing.  There are diminishing returns for it though.  As good as the few bites are, I often don't want a second piece.  For this pint, it looks like care has been done to deliver the cornflakes at a good frequency.  I am getting the occasional sweet corn flake and part of me wishes there were more, but I am also still enjoying them as I am finishing the pint.

I liked this flavor.  For a signature flavor, I was expecting something a bit more intense, but the balance between the bourbon and the sweet cornflakes is quite well done.  Check it out.