Wednesday, May 28, 2014

2nd St. Creamery's Mint Chocolate Victory Ice Cream

[By Nick, 2nd St has closed up shop before the 2015 ice cream season] Along with Cannoli di Nonni, I also picked up 2nd Street Creamery's Mint Chocolate Victory. There's such a lack of mint flavors that aren't just plain old mint chocolate chip that I literally get irritated looking for a mint flavor to review. Thankfully 2nd Street wasn't complacent and decided to make a new mint option to try. Heck, the back story of this flavor is that they were trying to create the greatest mint chocolate flavor. Let's just see if they achieved that goal and indeed secured a victory.

2nd St. Creamery Mint Chocolate Victory! Ice Cream
Mint Ice Cream with Fudge Sauce, Fudge Cookies and Chewy Brownies

The description of this flavor alone has the potential of being one of the best mint flavors I've had. Not only do they included thin-mint-like cookies, there's also brownies in the mix as well! Besides Dubba's review of tons of brownies, I've heard good thing about‎ them. Oh and a fudge sauce doesn't hurt things either.

Removing the lid, the base is a lot lighter than I was expecting. I would believe you if you said it was vanilla by the look of it but there is a pleasant minty aroma. That's something I definitely appreciate so we're off to a good start.

The mint flavor is actually quite mild as well. It reminds me more of a mint infused vanilla from its lack of intensity. I'm okay with that though because the mint cookies more than make up for it. These are basically thin mints in flavor but the texture is off. I was looking for them to add a crunch but they're more crumbly. ‎

The fudge sauce is the same one I encountered in Cannoli di Nonni. The Hershey's syrup like quality works well with the mint flavor but does get cloying if you get too much in your scoop.

Now for the brownies... Yeah, I don't see the hype behind them. They were too dry for my liking. They do have a little chew to them but can be crumbly just like the cookies. I do like the inclusion of the chocolate chips in them adding for an extra thud every now and again though. If anything, 2nd Street does add a lot of them in the pint. They're just no Greyston brownies like you find in Ben & Jerry's.

I really can't decide if I like this one or not. It's a nice change of pace from the traditional mint chip ice cream for sure. There's just nothing that sticks out to me though that would warrant a repurchase from me, let alone deserve the title of best mint chocolate flavor. That title still remains with Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Peppermint Crunch. ‎I'd say give this one a shot if you're looking for something minty but have your expectations in check.

Verdict?  Decent but nothing spectacular.
Buy Again?  No, I'd just make my own version in a sundae


TheHollows said...

I'm not really a fan of their brownies either. My two favorite ice creams from them are still Copper Kettle Caramel (amazing) and Don't Tell Me No Cookie Dough. I didn't care for the brownies one much so I guess I can't totally hate on Dubba.

Nick Rovo said...

TheHollows, while I can't find the cookie dough, I will be grabbing the caramel sometime soon. Oh and you can always hate on Dubba, I do it every day;]

Anonymous said...

I must be the only one who loves 2nd Street's brownies!

Really wishing I could try this but the only store in my whole area that carries 2nd Street has recently stopped carrying it.

Nick Rovo said...

Anon, everyone has their own preferences. I like a good chewy brownie and that wasn't the case here. Be sure to check out random gas stations though since the places I've now found them at aren't even on their store locator.

Josh Hinnenkamp said...

I was a member of an online focus group for 2nd Street Creamery, where they'd have me fill out a survey a couple times a month in exchange for an amazon gift card. This program abruptly ended a few weeks ago, and I was sent a free pint coupon to thank my for my participation. I went to the only local store which carries it, and there were almost completely out of everything... they had three flavors in stock, where previously the had eight or ten. I'm wondering if there's any chance they're discontinuing the line, or if this particular store just wasn't seeing enough sales to re-order. The only other explanation is that it's such a high-turnover product that they ran out of several flavors and weren't able to restock quickly enough. I'd find that hard to believe. Added to this, the final survey 2nd Street had me fill out was about my opinion on a completely different and as-yet unreleased product line, much like "dibs" but with some candy pieces in there as well. One of the pieces was a PB filled chocolate rabbit, so it was obviously going to be released under the Blue Bunny brand.

Anyway, I wanted to try Mint Chocolate Victory with my coupon, but from my limited options, I chose Copper Kettle Caramel, which was pretty great.