Tillamook - Bing Cherry Cheesecake

Bing Cherry Cheesecake - Cheesecake Frozen Custard with Bing Cherry Chunks and Pieces of Graham Cracker Crust

Tillamook Creamery has completely revamped their pints menu for 2021.  All of the pints flavors are now classified as frozen custard and a lot of the old pints flavors have been retired.  I have mixed feelings about this.  I like having new flavors to review, but I hate to see so many old flavors go at once.  The fact that it is 'frozen custard' is not a big deal.  That just means there is extra eggs in the mix.  The product is creamy, yet still quite hard and firm -- it is not a soft serve.  Today's flavor is called Bing Cherry Cheesecake and I bought it at Kowalski's on Grand in Saint Paul.  The base is cheesecake and the mix-ins are bing cherry chunks and pieces of graham cracker crust.  I have written about bing cherries recently (see this Pumphouse flavor).  They are crossbred from a Black Republican Cherry and an unknown second parent, so they have a very black-cherry-like flavor.  Let's check it out.

Removing the lid and peeling back the foil, I see the base ice cream has a pink color consistent with other cherry flavors that I have had.  Despite the flavor description, it looks like the cherry mix-ins have been allowed to bleed into the cheesecake base.  Although it does have have the slightly purplish tinge that some black cherry pints have, as I try the first spoonful it does have a bit of black cherry flavor to it.  There are also small cherry pieces mixed in which add additional cherry flavor.  The cream cheese in the base balances out the flavors quite well.  The graham cracker crust pieces were excellent.  They had a gritty texture and lots of graham cracker flavor.

This is an excellent implementation of a 'slice of cheesecake' flavor from Tillamook.  Good cherry/black cherry flavor in the base, good graham cracker crust pieces.  The cheesecake provides thickness and balance without contributing its own flavor (some cream cheese have an intentional aftertaste).  This is delicious and well done.