Mounds of Coconut
Coconut flavored ice cream with a coconut swirl and old fashioned fudge pieces
Date Tried - January 21, 2023
Location - Kitchen counter seated at the left stool
Format - Half Gallon
Milkshake It? - Yes
Buy Again? - Yes
Trying these ice cream flavors is immensely fun work. It needs to be pointed out that, while I take the glory for writing these reviews, Lisa has tried every flavor alongside me. This project would take on a noticeably sadder tone if it were completed alone, so I thank her for offering me this level of dignity. By the same logic, it’s particularly fun to try a flavor with a group of friends. The weekend that we tried Mounds of Coconut, our friends Natalie and Reinhart came to visit from Vermont.
If you’re reading this right now, there is a near 1-in-10 chance that you are related to Reinhart. The Meisenheimers—who make up a good chunk of my subscriber base—do not take their ice cream lightly.
I welcome their vigilant eyes.
The four of us braved the cold to watch biathletes ride skis and shoot guns as part of the FISU World University Games. Before heading home, we made sure to swing by the Lake Placid Stewart’s. Inside the shop, we had a brief conversation with a woman from Canada who had traveled to New York to watch her daughter compete in the ice hockey tournament. Those Canadian women would go on to beat Japan five-to-zero for the gold medal.
I’d like to imagine that, someday, that woman will nostalgically search for online references to her daughter’s commanding hockey victory and wind up reading this entire ice cream review.
If you are that woman…hello from the other side.
In my opinion, the texture of Stewart’s ice cream is where they shine the brightest. If I remember correctly, I once stated in a review that it feels chewable. Mounds of Coconut’s texture was different, though; it was soft, airy, almost fluffy. It was still enjoyable, but I wouldn’t be happy if Stewart’s announced publicly that all of their flavors were suddenly going to have this texture.
About the coconut—the only living species of the genus Cocos—James Joyce once said, “Its olfactory profile brings to life the concept of Epiphany.” In all honesty, I have no way of verifying whether or not he ever said that. But a company called Alpha Aromatics claims that he did on their website, so I guess that’s good enough for me. And I agree wholeheartedly; a fresh coconut is one of the purest, most unadulterated joys in which a human being can take part. As a rule, imitation flavorings will never be capable of pleasing in the same way as the real thing, especially with something as luscious and exotic as a coconut. Thinking back on my eating experience, I can’t quite shake the feeling that Mounds of Coconut sort of tastes like sunscreen. But this is a corporate-driven association; I reject the disservice it does to the ice cream flavor.
Not to mention the genteel legacy of the nut.
Before I publish these posts, I do an obligatory once-over, a way to proofread and to tighten things up a bit. This time, I noticed that I forgot to include the link above for the Mounds of Coconut web page. When I searched for the flavor in the official Stewart’s flavor list, I found nothing. So, I did a Google search for the page in question, and what I got was the following message:
“SORRY, THE FILE YOU REQUESTED WAS NOT FOUND. Unfortunately the page you are looking for is no longer available.”
I tried this flavor on January 21st and am writing this review on March 3rd—was Mounds of Coconut killed in between these two dates? When I jotted down my initial thoughts (a routine practice as part of the ‘I Scream, You Scream process'), I took note of the fact that it was apparently “back by popular demand.”
What happened to suddenly force a democratically revived flavor back into extinction? Perhaps they ran into trademark woes with their unsanctioned reference to the Hershey’s Mounds bar? Or maybe the strangely soft texture we encountered was a manufacturing default that resulted in the flavor being pulled entirely from production.
I imagine, if pressed, Stewart’s wouldn’t give an honest answer. But that doesn’t mean one isn’t out there.
Our aforementioned friend Reinhart has told me about the now-defunct flavor Chocolate Trifecta on two separate occasions. It was a chocolate lover’s Neapolitan: three equal stripes of milk chocolate, dark chocolate & white chocolate.
I don’t think I cared about Mounds of Coconut as much as Reinhart cares about Chocolate Trifecta. But maybe some of you do.
If so, I lament the loss of your friend.
Author’s Note: If my calculations are correct, you’re probably reading this sometime in mid-April. I’ve done a good job at “working ahead” so that the writing never becomes overwhelming. January was instrumental as far as this effort goes; in that month alone, I tried nine flavors over a twenty one day span. That’s just shy of one quarter of the flavors that we’ve tried thus far.
As my high school basketball coach would have said…
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.