Milkjam Creamery - The Purple One

The Purple One - Black Currant Ice Cream with Lavender

Today's pint comes from the Minneapolis-based Milkjam Creamery.  It is called The Purple One.  I presume this flavor is in honor of Minneapolis' own Prince who passed away just a couple of years ago.  Of course, Purple Rain was one Prince's most famous albums.  How do they make the ice cream purple?  With blackcurrants and lavender.  This should be a fun pint.  I have had blackcurrant in ice cream once before but only as a syrupy swirl and not as a base.  Lavender, I have had once before as well, but there it was mixed with blueberry.

Let's dig in!  Removing the lid, the ice cream is indeed purple!  Whew!  Digging in, I taste the berry-like flavor of the blackcurrant right away, but I also taste strong notes of lime.  Is there lime in here?  This is why I wish Milkjam had more detailed ingredient lists.  It is not uncommon for lime to be used to balance a fruity flavor like this.  One time I saw it blended with hibiscus and another time I saw it blended with blackberries.  It worked quite well in each of those cases, and assuming there is lime in the current pint it works well here as well.  I did not explicitly taste the lavender.  Perhaps it has a subtle flavor-balancing effect that I did not realize.  The pint is homogeneous (i.e. no swirls or mix-ins) so there is not much more to report.  The flavor combination works well and continued to work well as I ate the rest of the pint.

This is a well-done implementation of a berry-flavored ice cream.  It has a strong and potent flavor but is not too tart or too sweet.  Because it is so much berry at once, it might be good a scoop or two at a time instead of a whole pint in one sitting.