Izzy's - Cabernet de l'Orange

Cabernet de l'Orange - Blackberry, Blood Orange and Honey Ice Cream

Today I return to the Saint-Paul-based Izzy's Ice Cream.  Spring has finally sprung in Minnesota and they rotated the flavors in their scooping bin to mark the occasion.  One of those flavors is called Cabernet de l'Orange.  This flavor won Best in Show in their 2015 flavor contest.  It is a fruit flavor with blackberries, blood orange and honey.  Interestingly, it does not appear to have any wine or grapes in it, but perhaps a blackberry and blood orange blend is a good simulator of that flavor.  Plus, I have to give a hat-tip to the flavor name anyways.  Cabernet de l'Orange is very fun to say!

Removing the lid shows a dark pink, almost magenta-like color of the base ice cream.  This reminds me a bit of Izzy's own Church Elderberry flavor.  No seeds though.  This base is quite smooth.  Digging in, the fruit flavor is quite delicious.  It is soft and creamy -- it is an ice cream and not a sorbet -- and it is not at all tart.  I can taste the blackberry and the blood orange but I also find that the two have blended extremely well.  If you were to tell me that this flavor was its own fruit, I would believe you.  The honey flavor I do not specifically taste, but often honey is used to keep a fruit flavor from getting too sweet, and that is definitely the case here.  Despite being a homogeneous pint with no mix-ins, I am easily able to finish the pint in one sitting.

This is an excellent fruit-based flavor of ice cream.  The blackberry-blood orange blend is very well balanced.  It is not too sweet or too tart.  There's no wine in this pint -- at least I don't believe so -- but somehow the name does not feel inappropriate.  It sort of tastes like a virgin sangria.  Perhaps I just like saying the name.  Cabernet de l'Orange.  Ha ha.  If you are at Izzys and are up for something a little tart and a bit seedy, try Church Elderberry.  For non-tart seed-free and pulp-free fruit flavor, I like this pint.