Izzy's - Vanilla & Vanilla Bean

Vanilla & Vanilla Bean - Vanilla Ice Cream and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

I heard recently that Izzy's Ice Cream is not going to reopen their Saint Paul location.  An announcement on their website is here.  That's a major bummer.  They are consolidating operations at their Minneapolis location.  I toured the Minneapolis location last year as part Doors Open Minneapolis and that location does have a larger and brighter manufacturing and storage facility so it makes sense from their standpoint but as a Saint Paul customer it means I'll have to go further to get hand-packed pints.  Interestingly, there was a comment on this review last fall -- long before COVID-19 -- wondering about this possibility.  So perhaps they had been thinking about this for a while?  I am not sure.

Anyhow, today' I'll be reviewing the last two of the pre-packed flavors Izzy's makes available to local grocers.  I got them at Kowalski's on Grand, but you can also find them at Lunds, Hyvee, Whole Foods and a few other places.  I am reviewing both Vanilla and Vanilla Bean flavors.    I combine these flavors into a single review for a few reasons.  First, I find it interesting that a implements both of these -- often they choose one or the other.  That makes me curious as to how much of a difference there is.  Next, I anticipate the difference to be relatively small, so I want to look at them and taste them side by side so I can see how the two vary on the spot.  If I were to try them a week apart then I might not fully remember all the details from the first pint as I'm eating the second.  I have done this before with Häagen-Dazs.  It turned out to be one of my top-five reviews clickwise, so I'll try it again here with Izzy's.  A reminder that the pictures below enlarge when you click on them if you a closer look.

OK, onto the ice cream!  Opening both pints, you can see lots of specks in the vanilla bean pint and no specks at all in the vanilla pint.  There is much more of a visual difference speck-wise here than there is in the  pints.  Both bases have a bright white color, but I do remember from working as a stockboy at a paint store in college that two things that look white can be slightly different.  I wouldn't call either of these 'off' white because they are so close to white, but I see that the Vanilla pint is a warmer white which has notes of yellow and the Vanilla bean pint has a cooler white which has notes of bluish grey.   Taste-wise, both pints get their vanilla from the Nielsen-Massey vanilla company and both taste quite good.  I found the flavors of the two Izzy's pints to be more similar than those of the Häagen-Dazs pints.  With Häagen-Dazs, I thought that the Vanilla Bean had a stronger flavor, but with Izzy's I'm not sure if I would be able to pass a blind taste-test as to telling the two apart.  The main difference for Vanilla Bean with Izzy's is the appearance and they do have a much prettier Vanilla Bean than Häagen-Dazs.  The specks are larger.  The specks in Häagen-Dazs were ground more finely and created a dirtier looking base.

These are well-done implementations of Vanilla from Izzy's.  If you frequently buy Häagen-Dazs Vanilla or Vanilla Bean pints, then you should give Izzy's a try to compare -- and you'll support the local company during these interesting times.  It is 'just' vanilla, I suppose, and not everyone buys premium ice cream for vanilla because they're focusing on the cake or the toppings.  So, I want to pass along some of my other favorites in the Izzy's pre-pack line.  For simpler flavors, I really enjoyed their Chocolate and Chocolate Chip flavors.  For complex flavors, my favorites in the pre-pack line are Midnight Graham Crunch and (if you can find it) Irish Moxie.