OddFellows - Bodega Counter Crunch

Bodega Counter Crunch - Light Caramel Ice Cream with Chocolate-Covered pretzels, honey roasted peanuts and crushed homemade butter crunch cookies

I was watching the Late Show with Stephen Colbert last month and the had a couple of guys named Desus Nice and the Kid Mero on.  These guys host a podcast called "Bodega Boys" and a pay-cable talk show called Desus & Mero.  To be honest, I hadn't heard of them before but it was a fun interview and when they came back after the commercial,  in the second half of the interview, they were promoting their own line of ice cream flavors!  Stephen also had an excuse to drag out pints of his own flavor Americone Dream.  Fun!   

So, I googled to see who was selling Desus & Nero's ice cream and it was OddFellows Ice Cream of Brooklyn, New York.  I have had before!  I usually eat and review at least one pint whenever I visit my sister in New York.  OddFellows actually has a group of six flavors associated with Desus & Nero called the Bodega Capsule.  I checked to see if they ship nationwide and they do.  (A note to local readers that these are not available in local stores.)  Shipping costs were a bit expensive, but I figure how often does it happen that people promote a colorful line of ice cream flavors on my favorite talk show.  I had to get it.  OddFellows only ships one day a week and I had just missed the deadline, so I had to wait a week for it to ship but then it arrived quite quickly and intact.

Once my Bodega Capsule did arrive, there were all sorts of goodies that came with the six pints.  There's a picture placard with a picture of a bodega menu on one side (including the six ice cream flavors and a photo of a typical bodega counter on the other.  There was a couple of stickers, a lottery ticket (looks like I win a coupon to order from OddFellows and a discount on a first month of Showtime to watch Desus & Nero).  There is also a postcard and there is even a little packet containing a single lactase tablet.  Ha ha...  I am not lactose-intolerant, but it is fun to know that they are worried about that.

There was ice cream in the shipment, too!  I suppose I should get around to that.  For the first pint, I decided to go with Bodega Counter Crunch because it had "bodega" in the name to match the same of the 'capsule'.  Bodega is a fun word.  In New York City, it means a small convience store (usually non-chain) which also sells some grocery-type items and often has a grill behind the counter where they can make some simple hot meals to go.  The word itself has an interesting etymology.  It's the Spanish form of the Latin/Greek word apothecary meaning 'storehouse' -- the French form is 'boutique'.  So, you end up with three totally different types of stores:  apothecary (drugs), boutique (clothing/jewelry) and bodega (convenience) all coming from the same root.  Aren't word histories fun?

OK, back to the ice cream again!  The base here is a light caramel and there are a variety of mix-ins: chocolate-covered pretzels, honey roasted peanuts and butter crunch cookies.  Let's see how this works out.  Opening the lid, the caramel base has a light yellow color and I can see bits of a couple of the mix-ins right away.  Digging in, the base ice cream has an appealing caramel flavor.  It is fairly mild, but this is billed as a 'light' caramel.  This base is meant to be a vehicle for the mix-ins.  The mix-ins are scattered throught out the pint.  The density of the mix-ins is not super-high, but each spoonful contains at least one of them.  Sometimes I get a small pretzel bite, sometimes I get a crunchy peanut, sometimes I get a bit of a cookie.  Each tastes pretty good, but the pieces are small enough that the flavor quickly disappears once you bite into something new.  It's still good though and I enjoyed eating it.

This is a solid flavor to start off the Bodega Capsule from OddFellows.  One minor quibble is that with so many different kinds mix-ins, it is hard for any of their flavors to stand out, but it's still quite delicious and the caramel base does a good job of holding it all together.  It'll be fun checking out the rest of this Bodega Capsule in the coming few weeks!