On Wednesday after the biggest binge-eating chocolate/ice cream holiday of the year (aka Valentine's Day) Ben & Jerry's decided to spoil vegans with some new ice cream, and boy were we thrilled. Ben & Jerry's announced not one, but three new non-dairy flavors that will soon be flooding stores throughout the US.
So of course the first thing I did was put in my zip code, but lo and behold, they aren't sending these sweet treats to my area yet. But that doesn't mean we can't talk about what the introduction of these new flavors mean.
The new ice cream flavors are Caramel Almond Brittle, Cherry Garcia and Coconut Seven Layer Bar. They all sound amazing, and I think there are some pretty solid reasons as to why Ben & Jerry's picked these particular flavors. So, let's talk about ice cream for a bit, okay?
Caramel Almond Brittle
Let me start by saying I want to shake the hand of the person who came up with this flavor. According to the carton, this has almonds, swirls of caramel, and almond brittle—which to my dentist sounds like a disaster, but to me sounds like an ooey gooey mix of hard chunks of mouthwatering brittle and thick caramel ice cream swirls smashed together.
Let's also take a moment to applaud Ben & Jerry's for finally creating a caramel-based vegan flavor. Prior to releasing Caramel Almond Brittle, the only way you could get anything close to caramel in your non-dairy Ben & Jerry's ice cream was to buy its Coffee Caramel Fudge flavor. It sounds all fine and dandy, until you try and eat it at night or if you just don't like coffee.
By creating this new flavor, I feel like they really extended a hand out to those of us who love caramel, but don't like coffee.
Cherry Garcia
The thought of this sounds like cough syrup to me, but to people like my dad who love cherry-flavored everything, this is probably a dream come true. This is also an area that Ben & Jerry's ice cream previously lacked in for its non-dairy section.
I think it's important to note that they finally stepped up their game with cherry-flavored ice cream, especially since Trader Joe's has its own cherry vegan ice cream that's much cheaper and very good.
Coconut Seven Layer Bar
Finally, this is once again another area that Ben & Jerry's ice cream previously lacked in its non-dairy section. I think this flavor sounds very interesting. They not only made coconut ice cream, but they also put in fudge chunks, caramel, and graham crackers. This is probably going to taste like Almond Joy meets s'mores.
All in all, these new additions have been long in the making and I think they're practical. They each fill a specific need, and I'm so glad Ben & Jerry's realized its initial flavors were majorly lacking in several flavor departments. As a vegan and someone who's deathly allergic to milk, I'm glad Ben & Jerry's is back at it again with new dairy-free ice cream.