Fireworks

Vanilla ice cream with a tart cherry swirl and Pop Rocks™

Fireworks

Date Tried - July 11, 2023

Location - Seated (outside Stewart’s, then in the passenger seat of our car)

Format - Cone

Milkshake It? - No

Buy Again? - Yes

“Celebrate any day with a bang! This flavor will bring back all your 4th of July memories. Our Fireworks flavor combines creamy vanilla ice cream with a tart cherry swirl and red and blue Pop Rocks ™ that burst in your mouth!”

Fireworks—a technological marvel dating back to China’s Song Dynasty (about one thousand years ago)—are pretty strange.

What is it about explosive BOOMS that cause people to gather and marvel?

I suppose it’s really very human, another audiovisual manifestation of our need to hoist the natural world’s most frightening features onto a pedestal and show that we hold some sort of ascendancy over them.

Here in the Adirondack Park, fireworks are a touchy subject. Many here are beginning to question whether the nostalgia and joy associated with these flashy displays is outweighed by their negative impact on protected wilderness areas. I can understand this viewpoint and probably share it, though it definitely didn’t impact Keene’s Community Day, a family friendly event that ended with a memorable fireworks show. People swarmed into Marcy Field, set up blankets, popped bottles of wine, and “ooh”ed at all the appropriate moments.

My intention was to try this flavor on Community Day, after the fireworks (poetic, I know.) But I didn’t do so because I ate too much pulled meat at the event. So, instead, I tried it two days later after a seven mile trail run with the ADK Run Club. [Run Club makes up a core section of my readership and, though I am indebted to them in more ways than one, my relationship with running still remains tentative at best.]

A long time ago, I discovered that Fireworks is the only Stewart’s flavor that is exclusively served at the scoop counter, a fact that I believe remains true. But it didn’t always used to be true! I know this because I found a short Wired.com review of the flavor written by a woman named Kathy Ceceri. (Kathy reviews other important things, too, like the movie Schindler’s List and something called Klutz Star Wars Thumb Doodles.) In her review—which is fairly bare bones and dates back to 2012—there is a photo of a half gallon container of Fireworks.

I find this particularly interesting for two reasons:

1. At some point, the magnates in the evil Stewart’s glass castle decided that it wasn’t worth it anymore for consumers to have this flavor in bulk. But, instead of retiring it, they allowed it to hide in the shadows of the permanent canon, presumably so scoops of it could be dished out on (or around) the 4th of July.

2. In Kathy’s photo, the flavor description on the box reads “Vanilla flavored ice cream with cherry swirl and popping candy”; these days, the website description of the flavor clearly calls out the trademarked Pop Rocks™ by name. So, perhaps the decision to pull the half gallon production freed up enough funds to dish out for the proper candy brand partnership.

Because there are no half gallons or pints of Fireworks in Stewart’s Shops, I did not read the flavor description before trying it, rendering it probably my blindest ‘I Scream, You Scream’ experience to date. I assumed that it was just Pop Rocks mixed into Vanilla ice cream. This assumption is true, but it’s incomplete. It ignores arguably the most important feature: the tart cherry swirl.

Upon trying the flavor, I had two back-to-back thoughts:

“Wait, this isn’t bad…it’s actually kind of good!”

“…but what is it?”

I was prepared to hate Fireworks (there’s a reason it got tried so late in the game), but I do not hate it. Lisa tried a bite and, like me, had trouble placing the flavor profile. But she also didn’t disapprove. The cherry swirl is a quiet actor, adding a latent infusion of fruit just below the surface. It’s a different sensation than the cherry found in Black Sweet Cherry or Cherry Vanilla, and I am a fan of it.

Now, I’m not going to say that it’s my favorite flavor (or even that it cracks the top 30), but consider me pleasantly surprised.

We are not strictly here for praise, though, so allow me to address the Pop Rocks. Mine did not pop. Never. They just tasted like sugary pebbles with absolutely no effervescence. In Kathy’s review, she suggests attempting to make your own version of the flavor at home and wisely recommends, “To keep the Pop Rocks from popping prematurely, you might want to sprinkle them on top, rather than mixing them in.”

Are you listening, Ballston Spa?

Why did I expect Fireworks to be bad? Well, because it is a flavor for children—a colorful ruse that is both inoffensive and highly crushable. In my opinion, this is the Stewart’s take on Birthday Cake, a classic kids flavor which they surprisingly do not offer. I’m OK with this, because Fireworks is better than Birthday Cake. And, after some light Googling, it appears that it is unique to the Stewart’s dairy multiverse—a concoction strictly of their own making that has not yet been ripped off by other ice cream outfits. [Perry’s does have a flavor called Fireball, but this is a mess of spicy cinnamon flavors and red dyes that, frankly, looks gross.]

So, as a way to celebrate the mild triumph that is Fireworks, I’ll quote a musical artist—one who is famous for their lyrical tribute to the institution of fireworks:

“You don't have to feel

Like a waste of space.

You're original,

Cannot be replaced.”

~Katy Perry