Adventure Pick (Alternate Title: How Dave Got His Groove Back)

After much deliberation, last night I decided to buy a pint of Ben & Jerry's new Black & Tan ice cream. For the record, it’s actually pretty good.

For the uninitiated, Ben & Jerry’s Black & Tan ice cream combines what is described as cream stout ice cream with what is described as chocolate ice cream. I guess the reason I had held off on trying Ben & Jerry's new Black & Tan ice cream for so long (approximately 6 weeks) is because of the cream stout ice cream. It confused me and therefore I feared it (the problem with much of this world). But fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it), the deli by my house tends to have a somewhat crappy ice cream stock (e.g. They rarely have Chubby Hubby. What the fuck?) so I was forced to make an adventure pick last night. I knew it was time for Ben & Jerry's new Black & Tan ice cream. Dammit.

As hinted at previously, Ben & Jerry's new Black & Tan ice cream is pretty good stuff. The cream stout ice cream does in fact taste like cream stout- the beer that is- but not in a way where you’re all like “What the fuck? My ice cream tastes like beer. And where are my pants? And whose bathroom floor is this anyway? You’re not my daddy!” More precisely, it takes the non-alcoholic sweetness of, say, a pint of Guinness (specifically the way it tastes in Ireland as opposed to the United States. Yes, I know I’m a douchebag for making this distinction) and harnesses that into a subtly tasty ice cream. It’s good stuff though probably not something you’d want to not have chocolate ice cream or something mixed in with. Also, there is something inherently disturbing about the idea of cream stout ice cream and I can’t quite figure out what that is. I’m not sure if it bothers me that beer may have been added to my ice cream (Don’t get me wrong- I totally like to party. It’s just that I don’t always like to mix sh*t up like that.) or that some sort of chemicals or other flavorings have combined in a manner in which they somehow approximate the flavor of actual beer. Either way, I am mildly scandalized by this. I tried not to think about it too much while eating Ben & Jerry's new Black & Tan ice cream, the popular new flavor I decided to try last night.

Also mildly disturbing (though not so much as to make me stop eating it) about Ben & Jerry's new Black & Tan ice cream is that the cream stout flavored ice cream is sort of melted on top of the chocolate ice cream in a manner in which it is made to look not unlike an actual pint of Guinness (again I refer to the Irish version where the head is larger and much creamier. In short, I have been to Europe.). While others may enjoy this aesthetic touch, it’s a bit too adorable for me and also suggests a little too much human involvement on the back end of the ice cream-making process. By the time it’s ready to be packed into a pint, I think some machine should just cramming everything into there without much regard to presentation or any of that sort of thing. Again, however, that is just me, an outlaw who plays by his own set of f*cking rules and there’s not a damn thing any mofo can say about it.

In closing, I would highly recommend Ben & Jerry's new Black & Tan ice cream. Still, I must say that Ben & Jerry's popular Chubby Hubby and Coffee Heath Bar Crunch flavors still pretty much kick its ass. But if they don’t have those flavors at the store by your house, you should totally buy it.

There- once again I have pretty much nailed it.

Dave Hill