The Big Muddy Ice Cream Blog

Hi, my name is Madeline and I'm a mint snob. I just really love mint, and you can piss right off if you make a crummy mint product. Mint tea? It better be stuffed with fresh mint leaves not some speckles of dried mint leaf in a tea bag. Mojito? There better be mint all up in there, not just one lonely sprig as a garnish. Mint ice cream? It BETTER not be flavored with mint extract. I BETTER see pieces of real mint leaves. Coolhaus Dirty Mint Chip is my holy grail of mint ice cream. I first tried this ice cream as part of the  Mintimalism  ice cream sandwich and knew I had to get my hands on a pint of the stuff. Thanks to Fresh Thyme Farmer's Market I found a pint!!!!! This flavor is fresh mint leaf ice cream, brown sugar, dark chocolate chips. This is the best mint ice cream ever.  The sweet cream base is light, delicate, and milky which lets the mint shine through. And, oh my goodness, THE MINT. Coolhaus certainly did not skimp on mint leaves. You can see the bits...

I haven't forgotten my commitment to try all 14 Klondike Bar flavors and since Minter is in full swing, it's the perfect time to review Mint Chocolate Chip Klondike Bars, 'creamy mint ice cream mixed with decadent chocolate chips, enrobed in a dark chocolatey coating.' Enrobed! What a splendid word. Regrettably, this was about the only splendid thing about these bars. I'm well aware that Klondike Bars aren't trying to be top-of-the-line ice cream treats, but Mint Chocolate Chip wasn't even anywhere near middle of the pack. The main problem was the mint ice cream. Mint ice cream flavored with mint extract is more common than mint ice cream flavored with mint leaves, but it either turns out repellently minty or under-flavored. Klondike's go at mint chocolate chip was under-flavored. The ice cream was simply bland and the chocolate chips added some texture but not much taste. Somehow, despite the lackluster flavor, there was enough mint flavor...

If you're into ice cream and follow other bloggers, then you've definitely heard about Coolhaus ice cream sandwiches with their architecture-inspired names. They're not sold in too many places in the Mid-West, but I recently found some at Tim and Tom's, a local corner market. Seriously, I want to give the person in charge of dairy purchasing the biggest hug; they almost always have a new brand or rare flavor to try. The Mintimalism (inspired, of course, by minimalism ) is Dirty Mint Chip ice cream with Double Chocolate cookies.  Mint is one of my favorite flavors, and I'm super picky about it. Alone, I would rate both the cookies and the ice cream, particularly the ice cream, 🍦🍦🍦🍦/4, but I didn't quite love the way the two elements came together. It's hard to mess up double chocolate cookies, and Coolhaus definitely went a few steps above 'not messing up.' The cookie were soft and had a deep chocolate flavor, and the chocolate chips ...

I think Sweet Me is a new brand to this blog, but I've actually tried some before. I had a pint, and then completely forgot to write about it, and by the time I remembered I couldn't recall what I wanted to say about the flavor. In any case, Sweet Me has finally made it to Big Muddy with their Dark Chocolate Mint, creamy dark chocolate mint ice cream swirled with pieces of chocolatey shavings. I really, really love mint (Moroccan mint tea is actually the best thing in the world), which makes me pretty particular about mint ice cream. The mint flavoring can't be mint extract, that's gross, and the real mint can't be over-steeped or over-cooked because that is perhaps more disgusting. I didn't actually look at the ingredients, and they're not listed on the website, but Dark Chocolate Mint certainly didn't taste like it was flavored with mint extract. The chocolate ice cream was a deep, rich, dark chocolate. Although Sweet Me is premium ice crea...

Lizzy just reviewed new Thelma's flavor  Sugar Cookie Coffee , and I unknowingly, but serendipitously bought Double Chocolate Mint, the other new Thelma's flavor. I don't keep close track of Thelma's line-up because, until recently, they've only been available in a few stores in the twin cities, but they're getting wider distribution and have finally made it to my local Cub! I actually thought this was a winter seasonal flavor and picked it up in a resentful embrace of the snowfall we recently had in Minneapolis. Like, dude, no one wants winter anymore. Stop snowing. These treats are chocolate chocolate chip cookies with mint ice creams.  Thelma's really nails the perfect ice cream sandwich cookie texture. Crunchy cookies break leaving a mess of ice cream, and soft cookies sort of smush ice cream out everywhere. Thelma's cookies are the perfect middle ground; thick, soft enough to cleanly bite, but hard enough to avoid the smush-factor. The c...

A few weeks ago, it felt like spring in Iowa City. Now that spring break has arrived, we've been pulled right back to winter, with highs in the 20s and a few inches of snow! For those of you who don't live in the Midwest you may be thinking, isn't it the wrong season for Peppermint Bark ice cream? Well, you are 100% correct, but if it feels like winter outside, I'm going to eat winter ice cream flavors. Peppermint Bark was the second Talenti flavor I got at the Coralville Wal-Mart the other day. I never saw this flavor, or very many seasonal winter flavors at all, for that matter, at my grocery store. This disappointed me, so I was happy to pick up a pint in March! This flavor is described as We combine the most refreshing peppermint gelato with chocolatey flecks of semisweet Belgian Callebaut, and it tastes like polar bear smiles and the northern lights. (Which is delicious, in case you were wondering.)  Gosh Talenti, you are getting real with your flavor d...

PEPPERMINT IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON.  There are even carols about it.  Take, for example, the Irving Berlin classic "I'm Dreaming of a White (Chocolate Peppermint Bark) Christmas." The grocery stores in Minneapolis do not seem to fully appreciate the importance of seasonal peppermint flavors.  Christmas, the traditional peak of peppermint season, has past with nary a pint of peppermint ice cream in sight. Lizzy and I are currently home in St. Louis for the holidays, and luckily our dad had the next best thing, Prairie Farms Mint Moose Tracks ice cream.  There's not an official description, but it is a mint base with thick swirls of Moose Tracks fudge and chocolate mint cups. Prairie Farms (I keep wanting to type Purina Farms, which is a different thing entirely) is a generally solid brand of premium ice cream so I was expecting to like but not love this ice cream, and boy was I wrong! This moved into my top three favorite mint flavors of all time. The ...

Dearest Readers, I'm sure you all were incredibly devastated the last few weeks when Madeline and I weren't posting much because you wanted to know about all of the winter season flavors. Delightful peppermints, scrumptious holiday cookies, lovely hot cocoa flavors. Unfortunately, it was not only finals that kept you from reading about winter flavors. My HyVee hardly had any winter flavors stocked! Grants I'm sure I could have simply driven across town to one of the other HyVees and found plenty of winter goodness, but I'm lazy. However, there was one local Iowa winter treat on the shelves of my grocery store, the Whitey's Mint Chipper ice cream sandwich. This treat is described as A delicious blend of Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream between two homemade chocolate cookies! Starting out, the mint chocolate chip ice cream was pretty standard. It was strongly mint flavor, but distinctly mint extract, not leaf. However, I wasn't expecting anything differen...

For Thanksgiving break, Madeline and I visited our family that lives outside of Syracuse, NY. Other than all the fun of seeing family, we were quite excited to go to some local ice cream shops, as Madeline had never really gotten a good taste of the ice cream scene in the area. A lot of the shops around were closed for the season, but luckily Arctic Island, which has delicious ice cream, is open all year long! We went to get ice cream on Black Friday. I usually try to resist the onslaught of season flavors until the last second (they always overwhelm me), but it is now officially peppermint season, there is no denying it. I also would actually be down with it being peppermint season all year long, which I can not say about the flavors of other seasons (I'm looking at you pumpkin). Thus, I decided to start the holiday season with some Peppermint Candy ice cream! One note before I describe the flavor, this ice cream shop is a great  value. That is a small cup. Look how much ...

You know at Big Muddy, we always try to give the people what they want. And it seems like you all want more reviews of Sam's Choice ice cream. Almost all of our reviews of Sam's Choice ice cream get about twice the number of views as our other reviews. So when I was coming home and my mom asked what I needed from the grocery store, I obviously asked her to pick up some Sam's Choice! When I first saw this flavor in the freezer I thought it looked totally weird. I always thought that Moose Tracks referred to the little peanut butter cups in those flavors. So mint and peanut butter? Well, Moose Tracks is actually the fudge, which made me way more excited about this flavor. Because, as you might now, the fudge in those Moose Tracks flavors are the bomb! Also exciting news that Moose Tracks is partnering with Sam's Choice to make some stellar, but affordable ice cream! The other Sam's Choice flavor with Moose Tracks is just a traditional Moose Tracks flavor. ...

Sorry, Dearest Readers, but every once in a while I have a life outside of being an ice cream blogger. It's really unfortunate. When I have to do a lot of these other things, you know, like working or seeing my friends, sometimes I get a bit behind on reviews. After being on a research trip, visiting friends in LA, and going to a wedding in STL, I've gotten a bit behind on reviews! So be prepared for an onslaught the next couple of days. First up in this review backlog is a review of McConnell's Mint Chip. Madeline and I only tried McConnell's for the first time this past winter break after finding some at a fancy shmancy grocery store in STL. They are a California brand that I haven't been able to find any of in Iowa. So while I was in California, I knew I had to pick some up and give another flavor a try. The grocery store near where I was staying only had a couple of flavors and the most exciting one was Mint Chip. The description of this flavor is A ...

It's time to take a step back from all of the *new*new*new* I've been posting lately and review the classic Ben and Jerry's flavor Mint Chocolate Cookie.  Don't worry though, I have reviews of the June Blizzard of the Month and a couple new (but now several months old) Talenti flavors. Mint Chocolate Cookie is Peppermint ice cream with chocolate sandwich cookies. When I found Empower Mint, my grocery store was having a sale on Ben and Jerry's pints, so I wanted to pick up another flavor, and thought it would be nice to pick up another mint flavor to compare.  Chocolate Peppermint Crunch is well known as an AMAZING flavor, so I decided to go with a less popular mint option to see how it stacked up. Mint Chocolate crunch, like Empower Mint, uses a peppermint base; however it is quite tasty here where as in Empower Mint the peppermint was overwhelming.  Unfortunately, aside from the base, there just wasn't much going on. The chocolate sandwich coo...

A while back Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry's fame created the ice cream flavor Bernie's Yearning in support of Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders.  The flavor was mint ice cream with a disk of chocolate covering the top meant to represent the wealth disparity between the wealthiest 1% of the nation and the rest of the county.  The idea is that you break up the hunk of chocolate into smaller pieces and distribute it throughout the pint, representing a redistribution of wealth!  This was not an official product, as a company can't endorse a presidential candidate, but Ben and Jerry, the people, not the company did have a give away of 50 pints of this flavor. Lizzy entered the drawing, but unfortunately wasn't selected. Ben and Jerry's new flavor, Empower Mint, pays tribute to the social mission of Bernie's Yearning.  This flavor is Peppermint ice cream with fudge brownies and fudge swirls. The blurb on the side of the pint re...

It feel like I am almost finished with my shipment of New Orleans Ice Cream, which is hard to believe. It seemed like such a monstrous amount of ice cream when I first got it. I guess this is just putting perspective on how much ice cream I eat, especially when I think about all of the other ice cream I haven't eat in the course of working through my New Orleans shipment! What is most interesting about this flavor is the packaging. It a totally different color than the rest of New Orleans pints. I'm assuming this is to signify that the proceeds of this flavor go to the organization, Make It Right NOLA, which builds green homes to rebuild the New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward after Katrina. And no I don't mean, green like the houses are the color green, I mean green like these houses are solar powered and all sorts of cool stuff! It sounds like a great organization and ice cream aside, it is definitely worth contributing to what they are doing! But now for ice crea...

Because St. Patrick's day is in March, of course Dairy Queen's Blizzard of the month is green.  Grasshopper Mousse pie is Cool mint, graham pie crumbles, choco chunks, and whipped topping blended with creamy vanilla soft serve. I nearly had by Blizzard Treat stolen from under my nose, and I should have taken this as a warning not to try Dairy Queen's March Blizzard of the Month.  When I went to Dairy Queen, there was a fairly long line, so after I ordered I went to stand close to the back of the store to be out of the way.  When I heard my order called up I made my way to the front to receive my Blizzard, but some other girl had her hand on my treat! Like, bitch, do you think they skipped eveeerrryyyoooonnnee standing in line to make your Blizzard?  No.  They did not.  Step away from the Blizzard.  (Do not get between me and my ice cream.  I will call you a bitch.) This photo looks like it was just taken in bad lighting, but it wasn't. ...