New-to-Us Brand Alert! McConnell's Olive Oil & Salted Almond
Hooray hooray! Another review of our loot from our recent excursion to Straub's! The McConnell's flavor that Madeline chose was Olive Oil & Salted Almonds. We look at the flavors we picked and realized they all sounded quite sweet, so we figured we should get the one available flavor at the complete opposite end of the spectrum.
But before the review, some facts about McConnell's! McConnell's was founded way back in 1949! That's pretty old for an ice cream company! They are located in Santa Barbara, California and supposedly their ice cream machine is a "direct descendant" of the one they've used since 1949. I'm not entirely sure what "direct descendant" means for ice cream machines (like what kinship system do ice cream machine's use???), but McConnell's uses some types of french pot process. Last interesting fact, they purchase the milk they use raw, and then pasteurize it themselves! Fascinating!
Now, McConnell's does not put flavor descriptions on their pints. This peeves me. They also do not list this flavor on their website. So I will have to make up a description for you.
I would describe this flavor as Olive oil ice cream with chunks of salted, roasted almonds.
Now McConnell's, was that so hard? (Madeline says: lulz)
Anyway, the flavor. Wow this flavor, description or no description, was delicious! You could hardly taste the olive oil of the base ice cream, but it was there. in addition to the light flavor, this olive oil in the base upped the fatty taste of the cream and made the texture a bit oily. But I mean the texture was oily in the best way. It was extra smooth and fatty. Yum. The almond chunks were each about one third of an almond. They were roasted and quite salty, which balanced out the creamy, fattiness of the base. There were also a lot of almonds, so there was plenty of satisfying crunch! All in all, a great pint!
Although Lizzy's said it above, I have to mention the texture because it was amazing. As she said, it was oily and smooth, but oily and smooth in the way that supremely awesome olive oil is oily and smooth. Not greasy-oily.
Unlike Lizzy, I didn't think the olive oil flavor was that subtle. I guess olive oil is inherently a subtle flavor, but I thought it was about as bold as it could possibly be. I really liked it, but I kept thinking to myself, "Man, this is SUCH a weird flavor. But I love it. But it's so weird. Ahhhhhhh."
The almonds were that nice not-quite-crunchy-because-they're-soaked-in-ice-cream texture that roasted almonds sometimes get when they're mixed into ice cream. I enjoyed this because it added texture, but wasn't so crunchy that it was distracting. The nutty addition was the perfect counterpoint to the olive oil base.
But before the review, some facts about McConnell's! McConnell's was founded way back in 1949! That's pretty old for an ice cream company! They are located in Santa Barbara, California and supposedly their ice cream machine is a "direct descendant" of the one they've used since 1949. I'm not entirely sure what "direct descendant" means for ice cream machines (like what kinship system do ice cream machine's use???), but McConnell's uses some types of french pot process. Last interesting fact, they purchase the milk they use raw, and then pasteurize it themselves! Fascinating!
Now, McConnell's does not put flavor descriptions on their pints. This peeves me. They also do not list this flavor on their website. So I will have to make up a description for you.
I would describe this flavor as Olive oil ice cream with chunks of salted, roasted almonds.
Now McConnell's, was that so hard? (Madeline says: lulz)
Anyway, the flavor. Wow this flavor, description or no description, was delicious! You could hardly taste the olive oil of the base ice cream, but it was there. in addition to the light flavor, this olive oil in the base upped the fatty taste of the cream and made the texture a bit oily. But I mean the texture was oily in the best way. It was extra smooth and fatty. Yum. The almond chunks were each about one third of an almond. They were roasted and quite salty, which balanced out the creamy, fattiness of the base. There were also a lot of almonds, so there was plenty of satisfying crunch! All in all, a great pint!
Although Lizzy's said it above, I have to mention the texture because it was amazing. As she said, it was oily and smooth, but oily and smooth in the way that supremely awesome olive oil is oily and smooth. Not greasy-oily.
Unlike Lizzy, I didn't think the olive oil flavor was that subtle. I guess olive oil is inherently a subtle flavor, but I thought it was about as bold as it could possibly be. I really liked it, but I kept thinking to myself, "Man, this is SUCH a weird flavor. But I love it. But it's so weird. Ahhhhhhh."
The almonds were that nice not-quite-crunchy-because-they're-soaked-in-ice-cream texture that roasted almonds sometimes get when they're mixed into ice cream. I enjoyed this because it added texture, but wasn't so crunchy that it was distracting. The nutty addition was the perfect counterpoint to the olive oil base.
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