Death By Chocolate & Peppermint Stick
NEW YEAR'S EVE TWO-FLAVOR SPECIAL!
Death By Chocolate & Peppermint Stick
Dark chocolate ice cream with chocolate covered almonds, chocolate flakes and chocolate truffles
Peppermint flavored ice cream with mint candy pieces
Date Tried - January 1, 2023; shortly after midnight
Location - Sarah & Dan’s kitchen table
Format - Half Gallon(s)
Milkshake Them?
Death By Chocolate, No
Peppermint Stick, Yes
Buy Again? - Yes (x2)
If we’re here to do nothing else, it’s to break proverbial ground—to test the waters of what can be done in the world of gas station ice cream, what should be done. To kneel before the dairy altar on a weekly basis and give one’s self completely to the martyrdom of non-monetized ice cream reviews.
Today, we break ground by reviewing two new flavors in the same newsletter.
Is this a disservice to these individual flavors? Death By Chocolate didn’t ask to be lumped into a bowl with Peppermint Stick. And there are those out there that might shudder at such a lumping! Well, I—the man who lurches at tiny slivers of humanity through the analysis of frozen treats—am here to tell you otherwise.
In my very first review of the flavor Mousse Trail, I made the claim, “The death-by-chocolate sort of thing is not usually my bag, but when executed correctly it can be a real show stopper.” At the time, I didn’t know that Stewart’s had a flavor named Death By Chocolate. Such coincidental fate!
I also didn’t know that this phrase—”death by chocolate”—is trademarked by the restaurant chain Bennigan’s, a play on an Irish pub that started in Atlanta and now operates in seven states with a growing international presence. The trademarked dessert on the Bennigan’s menu includes “chocolate ice cream, almonds, mini-marshmallows, chocolate fudge sauce and Twix™ Cookie Bars, on a crumbled Oreo™ cookie crust and covered in a chocolate shell.” This is radically different than the Stewart’s take. So perhaps the trademark only applies to this highly specific combination of confections?
In any event, it turns out the Death By Chocolate sort of thing actually is my bag; I like it profoundly, which goes to prove that I am capable of either error or change. To employ an overused term in the ice cream world, it is decadent. Chocolate ice cream, chocolate flakes, chocolate truffles—balanced only by the inclusion of almonds (which are, say it with me, chocolate covered.) This is a blitz to the taste buds—rich and bitter and relentless.
But as these reviews tend to go, it’s not all high praise. I am at a stark loss in my attempt to differentiate the chocolate truffles from the chocolate flakes. It’s a small point which certainly deserves to be published, but it doesn’t detract from the overall conclusion: that Death By Chocolate is a feral beast of a flavor which shouldn’t be taken lightly by any consumer.
Hark!
This review is likely being published at the beginning of March, but the emergence of Peppermint Stick means Christmastime! This is the second Limited Edition flavor that has been reviewed as part of this challenge. In my opinion, the first of these—Tiramisu—should be entered into the permanent canon today. It is bewilderingly good and its scarcity is doing Stewart’s no favors. Peppermint Stick is also good, but its seasonality feels more appropriate. It is a colorful caricature of the holiday season and its success—like Strawberry or Chocolate Chip—lies in its simplicity.
Peppermint flavored ice cream with crushed bits of mint candy. That’s all.
Succinct, sweet and fresh.
Though, the flavoring of the base is a question worth considering. In Mint Cookie Crumble, the box lists the ingredient “peppermint extract.” However, in Peppermint Stick, we find “natural peppermint flavor”, which also can be found in the Non-Dairy version of Mint Cookie Crumble. Furthermore, Mint Chip has neither of these. It just includes “GREEN MINT SHADE (yellow #5, blue #1)”, which is also found in Mint Cookie Crumble but not Non-Dairy Mint Cookie Crumble.
So…I have some questions:
Are “peppermint extract” and “natural peppermint flavor” actually the same thing?
Which of these two can be found in Mint Chip?
If the answer to question #2 is “neither”, what makes Mint Chip minty?
Is there a world in which Mint Chip actually has zero mint flavoring and the placebo effect is being utilized to unconsciously convince us that it is minty based on the name and coloring alone?
Should all of these questions be dismissed and chalked up to the fact that Stewart’s might just be lazy with its ingredient lists?
If question #5 is true, which is more likely to result in a lawsuit: the Stewart’s ingredient lists or the Bennigan’s Death By Chocolate trademark?
Anyways.
The flavor of Peppermint Stick is joyously refreshing and the mint candies, while somewhat forgettable, do add an understated flare of appropriate holiday cheer. Without question though, the biggest victory here is that (drumroll, please) Stewart’s did not dye the base! I realize this is likely because they wanted to maintain the charming whiteness of the Christmas season, not because they changed their overall philosophy on what can and can’t be minty.
But pushers can’t be shovers, or whatever.
Peppermint Stick and Death By Chocolate—side by side in a bowl—helped me ring in the New Year.
For fun, let’s imagine that these eternal words were written about ice cream:
And surely you'll buy your pint cup!
And surely I'll buy mine!
And we'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!
I would try death by chocolate sans peppermint stick
That's quite a recommendation for the Death-by-Chocolate. In the same bowl with Peppermint Stick, however, I think not. Although, having such different flavors surely will bring in a different type of year. This begs the question: Which represented 2022 and which 2023?