Black Sweet Cherry

Cherry flavored ice cream with black cherry halves

Black Sweet Cherry

Date Tried - February 14, 2023

Location - Standing at the kitchen counter in Crocs

Format - Pint

Milkshake It? - Yes

Buy Again? - Yes

“Bursting with fresh-from-the orchard goodness, this flavor combines cherry ice cream with succulent halves of black cherries. This cherry ice cream is sure to make all cherry lovers rejoice!”

This week’s flavor, Black Sweet Cherry, was tried on society’s sweetest holiday: Valentine’s Day.

The funny thing about Valentine’s Day (if the keepers of Information and Truth at Wikipedia are to be trusted) is that it wasn’t initially rooted in romance. That didn’t come until the 14th century, hundreds of years after the life and death of the alleged Valentine, whose identity is still debated to this day.

What is certain is that the person responsible for associating a man’s martyrdom ceremony with emotional love was Geoffrey Chaucer, the “father of English literature” known for writing The Canterbury Tales. In 1382, he wrote a dream vision account called Parliament of Fowls in which he imagined a political assembly of birds who were responsible for coordinating mate selection.

Romantic? I’m not so sure. But it is a rich and curious tidbit.

And speaking of rich, I will now ashamedly call something out here that I have yet to address in the ‘I Scream, You Scream’ backlogs. I noticed something on the side of my pint of Black Sweet Cherry. On the outside of the container, above the words “ICE CREAM”, it reads “SUPER RICH”.

Here are the things I don’t know:

1. I don’t know what makes this ice cream “super rich”.

2. I don’t know how many flavors fall under the “super rich” umbrella.

3. I don’t know how I didn’t notice this sooner.

There is always a chance that this is the first Super Rich flavor I’ve encountered. Don’t forget that, out of the 50+ flavors on the market, there are only three gelatos. Deep down though, I know this probably isn’t true.

I started this newsletter because no one else had. I never said I was the right person for the job.

In any event, it is super rich. Black Sweet Cherry is very sweet, likely because its ingredient list includes liquid sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, cane sugar syrup, and just corn syrup, no fructose level specified. So, as you may have guessed, the sweetness here is a syrupy one.

Lisa doesn’t like this. I do, which is surprising. I don’t normally go for the anything with overly syrupy vibes. This leads me to the only conclusion I can think of—that I’m being reminded of drinking a Manhattan, a veritable kryptonite for bearded white men in their 30s.

We were both skeptical of Black Sweet Cherry, this simple flavor with its Yoda-like naming convention (shouldn’t it be Sweet Black Cherry?) But despite these misgivings, we both kept coming back for more. After awhile, I had to face myself squarely and ask the inevitable question: “Do we love Black Sweet Cherry?”

Maybe we do.

Or maybe it was just Valentine’s Day magic sprinkled into the room.

Before I sign off, you may be interested to know that the flower crown adorned skull of the alleged Saint Valentine is housed in Rome in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin. It sits in a golden box with a glass front so that it can be viewed by the public.

I don’t love that.

And I bet he wouldn’t have either.