Graeter's - Peanut Butter & Jelly

Peanut Butter & Jelly - Concord Grape Ice Cream with Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Pieces

The next pint from my recent summer shipment from the Cincinnati-based Graeter's Ice Cream is called Peanut Butter & Jelly.  This is a limited-batch flavor for the summer.  I bought this with an online purchase and it is not available in local grocery stores.  The base ice cream is a concord grape flavor and there are peanut butter cookie dough pieces in the mix.  Checking my archives, this is the first grape-flavored ice cream that I have had.  I did not believe this at first, but I guess the other "peanut butter and jelly" implementations that I have tried (from Ben & Jerry's and Ample Hills) had used different flavors of jelly or jam (raspberry or strawberry) to go with the peanut butter.  Grapes have been domesticated by humans almost as long as there has been civilization.  They have found wineries in the Middle East that date back to 4000 BC.  The Concord grape was developed in the 19th century by Ephraim Wales Bull in Concord, Massachusetts.  It has a bright, bluish purple color (as opposed to the reddish color of red-wine grapes) and it has a sweet flavor that is used in some brands of grape juices (e.g. Welch's) and is used in making jelly, soda and candy.  It is the type of grape mostly commonly known to children.  I remember as a kid being disappointed by my first sip of wine -- how come this does not taste like grape bubble gum?  Let's see how this tastes as part of a peanut-butter-and-jelly ice cream.

Removing the lid, the grape base has a beautiful bluish purple color.  Digging in, the concord grape flavor is everything that I expected.  It has that sweet candy-purple flavor that makes me think of drinking grape soda drinks and chewing grape bubble gum.  As I continue eating I encounter the chunks of peanut butter cookie dough.  They are small cylindrical shaped pellets.  They are chewy and upon biting into them, they deliver a little bit of peanut butter flavor.

This is a fun and enjoyable flavor from Graeter's.  I found it to be much more jelly than peanut butter, but I don't mind because concord grape flavor in the jelly is delicious and reminded me of grape flavored things from my childhood.  As I write this, this limited batch flavor is already gone from the Graeter's menu, but if it comes back, then check it out for the concord grape flavor.  More brands should experiment with this type of grape -- if only to appeal to kids.