Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Alternating Between Delightful And Gross, Ben & Jerry's Urban Bourbon Ice Cream Is Unpleasant.


The Good: Good ingredients, A few bites out of the pint, Fair trade certified
The Bad: Awful sour flavor for most of the pint, Low on nutritional value, More expensive than other ice creams.
The Basics: Ben & Jerry’s Urban Bourbon Ice Cream is a solid failure from Ben & Jerry's.


Not long ago, I went on a working vacation and after the first night of the show I was working, I excitedly stopped by one of my favorite grocery stores (which has not made it to Michigan, so I was excited to revisit the chain while on my trip) and decided to treat myself. Given that my hotel room had a freezer, I decided to indulge and get a couple of pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream (they were on sale). In addition to picking up one of my favorite flavors of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, I decided to get a new-to-me flavor. I went with the Ben & Jerry's Urban Bourbon.

Ben & Jerry's Urban Bourbon ice cream sounded wonderful to me as it was billed as burnt caramel ice cream with almonds, fudge flakes and bourbon caramel swirls. After only a few bites, I abandoned the new flavor in favor of the other pint and when I went back to the pint a day later, I discovered it was no better than on the first pass. Ben & Jerry's Urban Bourbon ice cream is mostly sour and unpleasant, making it a real flop for the venerable ice cream company.

Basics

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream comes in a pint container. The Urban Bourbon Ice Cream is a mostly smooth ice cream with the nuts and fudge chips so broken up that they do not impede the spoon or scoop when consuming the ice cream. The caramel swirl is fairly heavy in the Urban Bourbon ice cream.

At (locally) $5.99 a pint, the Ben & Jerry’s Urban Bourbon ice cream is an expensive ice cream, despite how this flavor is unique to Ben & Jerry's.

Ease Of Preparation

The Urban Bourbon Ice Cream is a light ice cream that is dominated by its caramel swirl. As an ice cream, preparation is ridiculously simple: one need only open the top of the container, scoop out a half cup and consume! There is no trick to preparing or eating the Urban Bourbon Ice Cream!

Taste

Urban Bourbon ice cream smells very mild. It was only after I had gotten about a quarter of the way through the pint and the ice cream began to move toward its melting point that it became at all aromatic. Even then, there was only the very faintest scent of caramel to the ice cream.

In the mouth, Ben & Jerry’s Urban Bourbon ice cream is very sour. Almost every bite - with or without the caramel swirl - was sour with a bitter bite reminiscent of alcohol, which seems to be the very embodiment of the bourbon flavor in the ice cream. Out of the whole pint, only a bite or two did not taste sour . . . and those bites only tasted milky and muted. The fudge bits and nuts do not have the flavor ability to compete with the overwhelmingly sour and bitter flavor of the bourbon-laced ice cream.

This ice cream has a fairly strong aftertaste, which is sour and lasts in the mouth for about five minutes.

Nutrition

The Ben & Jerry’s Urban Bourbon Ice Cream is a fairly sour ice cream. The pint represents four half-cup servings. In the half-cup serving, there are 300 calories, 150 of which are from fat. The seventeen grams of fat include 9 grams of saturated fat in the Urban Bourbon ice cream. One serving has 60 mg of cholesterol and 70 mg of Sodium (3% RDA). The 33 grams of carbohydrates per serving are offset by a single gram of dietary fiber, making this not a heart-healthy ice cream. The only other real nutrients are five grams of protein in the Urban Bourbon Ice Cream.

Ben & Jerry’s Urban Bourbon has decent ingredients, though. Made primarily of Cream, Skim milk, and liquid sugar, there is nothing unpronounceable in the ingredients list for the Urban Bourbon ice cream. There are no allergy warnings on the pint, but anyone with allergies for eggs, milk, and/or nuts will want to avoid this ice cream.

Storage/Clean-Up

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is both a frozen and a dairy product, so it is pretty obvious that it must be kept frozen in order to remain viable. Kept frozen it remains fresh for months.

The Urban Bourbon ice cream is fairly light and it would be surprising if it left stains outside of light fabrics, though the caramel will certainly stain. As a dairy-based food, though, when the ice cream melts and gets onto fabrics, it will require one to wash it right out. On nonporous surfaces, the ice cream wipes off exceptionally easily.

Overall

The Ben & Jerry’s Urban Bourbon ice cream was disappointing outside a few bites in the pint, making it virtually inedible and unpleasant for consumers.

For other Ben & Jerry’s ice creams, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core ice cream
Pistachio Pistachio Ice cream
Limited Edition Candy Bar Pie Ice Cream

2.5/10

For other food reviews, please visit my Food Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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