I’m like that girl who has her wedding planned out for every season, but the daydream isn’t a wedding, it’s my ice cream stash. It starts with one of those industrial-sized freezers. I lift open the door, and beyond the golden halo are pints of Graeter’s lemon sorbet, Aglamesis butterscotch, Jeni’s brambleberry crisp, UDF blue moo cookie dough (don’t act like you don’t love that weird blue flavor), Madisono’s bananas foster and original Yagoot — but now, it’s time for some mental shifting and physical shifting because there’s a new flavor in town. It’s classic but newly hip, like your favorite pair of mom jeans, and it’s Graeter’s strawberry cheesecake.
The flavor punch packed into these pints is real. Stick a full size cheesecake in a Vitamix, freeze it and you’d be close. Sprinkled throughout are chewy-crunchy Graham cracker crust bites that taste like cookie dough and delicious little strawberry bits that explode with flavor like Pop Rocks, not those hard lumps from the fruit ice cream of your childhood nightmares. It’s creamy and cream-cheesy, and it premiered on the first day of Lent. Is it too late to switch your Lenten food penance? If it’s ice cream, no.
Besides their two-week long summer bonus flavor, Graeter’s comes out with a mystery flavor once a year, typically in late winter. Vice President of Marketing, Tim Philpott, says the choice is ultimately left up to the Graeters, the family in charge. “Their name is on each pint,” he says. “Throughout the year, we try many new flavor recipes and test a variety of potential new flavors. Our bonus-flavor program brings out one of these new recipes for a two-week period for consumers to try. We talk to a lot of consumers and our associates to gauge the popularity of each of these flavors.”
If you’re going into one of the shops for a scoop, may I recommend Oregon Strawberry or Madagascar Vanilla as natural pairings? If you’re just grabbing a pint, grab two. They just go together!
More info at graeters.com.
This article appears in Mar 1-8, 2017.