Best ice cream?

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Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate is pretty awesome! That is my close second behind rocky road actually! Vienetta is good too (do they still make that?)
 
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I still say my absolute fav. is plain ol' vanilla with the cherry flavored dip top. Although Edy's makes a limited edition of Girl Scout Samoa which is pretty damn good too.
 
Smitty37 said:
Well, the truth is the best ice cream I have ever had came from a little Family Farm Ice cream place in Pleasant Valley NY. I don't remember the name of the family (it was over 50 years ago) but I will never forget the ice cream it was out of this world in two or three flavors and only sensational in the others they had.
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Could that have been Wigstens? I lived in Hyde Park in the 60s and we went there all the time.
 
Give me a peach cobbler that was just removed from the oven and a scoop of plain vanilla...it just doesn't get any better than that.
 
yup

jeff said:
Could that have been Wigstens? I lived in Hyde Park in the 60s and we went there all the time.
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Yes it was...thank you so much for giving me that info..They were real nice folks too. From the cow to the Sundae, right there on the farm and made with real cream and real fruits, etc in season.
 
I used to live in Boston so long ago it scares me, and there used to be a chain of stores - Brighams Ice Cream. They made a peppermint ice cream with little pink chips of candy inside - I never had a peppermint ice cream that good.
 
Every time we went to Oshkosh for Airventure the deal was Culver's for frozen custard after dinner. Vanilla, chocolate and flavor of the day. There were three stores relatively near each other (especially as we are from Atlanta) so we could pick the best or all.

Lee
 
Here in the sticks (Idaho) there is one ice cream that I find worth getting, even though I'm really not supposed to (diabetic - so I just eat a little!). It's called Bear Claw, and although there are various commercial versions floating around, there is a store that has theirs custom made. The chocolate ice cream is so dark it is almost black, and it has veins of fudge and caramel running through it, then big chunks of nuts that were coated in chocolate. Mmmmm! If you're in the Yellowstone area, driving through Ashton Idaho, stop in at Dave's. They don't have it all the time, so you have to be lucky.

Scott.
 
Blue Bell as the standard?

ROOKIETURNER said:
Sorry, but there has to be a standard. The standard is Blue Bell. If you have never had it, then you really have nothing to compare to.
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From the May 2010 of Cooks Illustrated...taste test on "supermarket ice cream"

Product Name
Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla

Testers' Comments
Tasters disliked this ice cream's "over the top" vanilla flavor that tasted "artificial," concluding, "This is not adult ice cream." Most also panned its insubstantial texture for "falling apart" in their mouths.
Sugar
21g per 1/2 cup
Fat
8g per 1/2 cup
Overrun
46%
Ingredients
Milk, cream, sugar, skim milk, high-fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, natural and artificial vanilla flavor, cellulose gum, vegetable gums (guar, carrageenan, carob bean), salt, annatto color
Read Full Review
 
Butter burgers...

aggromere said:
Is Culver's the place with the butter burgers?
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That be the place. Last time I had one, I was traveling home from a daytime appointment in Chicago. It is about 2 hours home to Milwaukee. I stopped at Culvers for one of my favorite meals...double butter burger with cheese, french fries and a chocolate malt.

Later that night, I was not feeling so good. Got real sick. Wife took me to the hospital. I threw up in the exam room. Diagnosed with gall bladder problems (gall bladders are overrated, don't need them anyway!).

Doctor started explaining what the gall bladder does...asked me what I had for dinner that night. Since my wife was standing next to me, I fibbed (a little) and said I had a light spinach salad and a small glass of Perrier. He did not buy it. He finally beat the truth out of me and I had to admit that I had a double butter burger with cheese, french fries and a chocolate malt at Culvers. Yep, that will do it, he said.

Anyway, I don't miss the gall bladder, but I sure miss my butter burgers.
 
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Dreyer's Peach is hard to beat. But anything that says Blue Bell on the label has to be good. "Blue Bell, the best ice cream in the country!"

If you saw my waistline you would know that I am an expert on ice cream and most other fattening foods.
 
Paladin said:
From the May 2010 of Cooks Illustrated...taste test on "supermarket ice cream"

Product Name
Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla

Testers' Comments
Tasters disliked this ice cream's "over the top" vanilla flavor that tasted "artificial," concluding, "This is not adult ice cream." Most also panned its insubstantial texture for "falling apart" in their mouths.


See, they always try to take down the best. When you are at the top, someone has to try and knock you down.

Cooks Illistrated uses a small panel of taste testers, not a broad spectrum.

Cooks Illustrated (CI) has been in business since 1993, Blue Bell (BB) since 1907.

Here are the stats on Blue Bell. You decide if CI is actually right or wrong.

As of 2007, the company operates three manufacturing facilities, the largest (53,880²) facility in Brenham, with auxiliary facilities in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and Sylacauga, Alabama. There are also 45 sales and distribution centers spread throughout their 18-state market. These facilities employ a combined 2,800 employees, with 850 of the employees working out of Brenham.

In 2006, annual sales exceed $400 million. The company uses milk from approximately 60,000 cows each day, and the cream used during each day's production run is always less than 24 hours old. All production and packaging takes place within Blue Bell facilities, which are able to produce over 100 pints per minute. Drivers of delivery vehicles personally stock store shelves so that they can ensure that it is handled properly.
Blue Bell holds impressive sales figures, being the third best-selling ice cream in the United States as of 2004, behind Breyers and Edy's/Dreyer's, despite being sold in only 18 states. The sales area includes southern states between Arizona and Florida and Kansas City, an area that comprises only 20% of the ice cream sales geographic market. By comparison, each of Blue Bell's top 4 competitors sell their products in over 86% of the United States. In order to become one of the three biggest ice cream manufacturers, Blue Bell has consistently been the top seller in the majority of the markets the company has entered.

Within five months of their entry into Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the company had garnered 35% of the ice cream market. In their home state of Texas, the company has a 52% market share.

Hmmm...doesn't sound like many people agree with the taste testers in Boston.
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Taste testers

ROOKIETURNER said:
Paladin said:
From the May 2010 of Cooks Illustrated...taste test on "supermarket ice cream"

Product Name
Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla

Testers' Comments
Tasters disliked this ice cream's "over the top" vanilla flavor that tasted "artificial," concluding, "This is not adult ice cream." Most also panned its insubstantial texture for "falling apart" in their mouths.


See, they always try to take down the best. When you are at the top, someone has to try and knock you down.

Cooks Illistrated uses a small panel of taste testers, not a broad spectrum.

Cooks Illustrated (CI) has been in business since 1993, Blue Bell (BB) since 1907.

Here are the stats on Blue Bell. You decide if CI is actually right or wrong.

As of 2007, the company operates three manufacturing facilities, the largest (53,880²) facility in Brenham, with auxiliary facilities in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and Sylacauga, Alabama. There are also 45 sales and distribution centers spread throughout their 18-state market. These facilities employ a combined 2,800 employees, with 850 of the employees working out of Brenham.

In 2006, annual sales exceed $400 million. The company uses milk from approximately 60,000 cows each day, and the cream used during each day's production run is always less than 24 hours old. All production and packaging takes place within Blue Bell facilities, which are able to produce over 100 pints per minute. Drivers of delivery vehicles personally stock store shelves so that they can ensure that it is handled properly.
Blue Bell holds impressive sales figures, being the third best-selling ice cream in the United States as of 2004, behind Breyers and Edy's/Dreyer's, despite being sold in only 18 states. The sales area includes southern states between Arizona and Florida and Kansas City, an area that comprises only 20% of the ice cream sales geographic market. By comparison, each of Blue Bell's top 4 competitors sell their products in over 86% of the United States. In order to become one of the three biggest ice cream manufacturers, Blue Bell has consistently been the top seller in the majority of the markets the company has entered.

Within five months of their entry into Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the company had garnered 35% of the ice cream market. In their home state of Texas, the company has a 52% market share.

Hmmm...doesn't sound like many people agree with the taste testers in Boston.
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Taste is entirely 100% subjective your idea of what tastes good is of no use to me and my idea of what tastes good is of no use to you. I only know what tastes good to me...and often it doesn't taste good to my wife and visa versa. And Ice cream is one of those things...the only ice cream we both like quite a bit is Peanut butter swirl/cup.
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Before Blue Bell made it this far west we used to "bootleg" it here. We had a small freezer, and every time we went to San Antonio we would load up the freezer and haul a load back home. We also did the same thing to get Blue Bell to Ruidoso, NM to our cabin. Now it is sold there so we have finally quit being Blue Bell bootleggers.
 
Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla--(and I don't care if the tasters didn't consider it an Adult ice cream) it just doesn't get any better IMHO.

John
 
I'm not surprised that Blue Bell is the common thread through this... Easily my favorite. One of my fave's is Strawberries and Homemade vanilla - real fruit and subtle flavors...mmmmmm And BB just moved into NC! Woo freakin' Hoo! Now I can get my fix regularly... :p

I am surprised it took till post #65 for Haagen Daaz to make an appearance...
 
Blue Bell?

I am glad you like your ice cream. However, I find your stats unpersuasive. Using sales numbers to support a taste discussion is a waste of time.

By your measure, Bic makes the best pens. Mc Donalds makes the best hamburgers, etc.

Sales numbers only mean lots of people buy it (whatever it is), nothing more. No relationship to quality.

Plus, if you knew anything about how fresh custard is made, you would never trot out stats on how "fresh" ice cream is. Custard is made on the spot, and unsold custard is destroyed at the end of the day. It is not made to be frozen. Ever freeze fresh custard? Gets hard as a brick. Do you know why? All ice cream (like Blue Bell and all others) is made to be frozen and shipped and consumed later. Ice cream customers want to be able to scoop their ice cream within a reasonable period of time after it leaves the freezer. That is why the testers have a measure for "overrun". That is the amount of air that is beaten into the ice cream. As you can see, that number for Blue Bell is 41%.

That is neither here nor there, as all ice creams do it, but custard does not. That is why custard is so much creamier than any ice cream.

Anyway, back to my point...touting sales volume as indicative of any particular quality standard does not work.
 
Smitty37 said:
ROOKIETURNER said:
Taste is entirely 100% subjective your idea of what tastes good is of no use to me and my idea of what tastes good is of no use to you. I only know what tastes good to me...and often it doesn't taste good to my wife and visa versa. And Ice cream is one of those things...the only ice cream we both like quite a bit is Peanut butter swirl/cup.
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Smitty,

I agree with you. Taste is subjective, however when Blue Bell only has 20% market share and is #3 in the nation, that says a lot about their product. When the #1 and #2 guys have to be in 86% of the market to gain those positions.

My reponse was not to sway anyone, but to respond to someone posting a bogus "subjective" taste test panel from Cooking Illustrated, which stated some very misleading information. The information was purely subjective (other than the listing if ingredients).

My statement concerning Blue Bell being the standard was toungue and cheek. But the quote that I made was not subjective. It was factual. Blue Bell gobbles up the markets that they are in. $400 million in sales says alot about a product.

BTW, have you ever had Blue Bell's Homemade Vanilla?
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dogcatcher said:
Before Blue Bell made it this far west we used to "bootleg" it here. We had a small freezer, and every time we went to San Antonio we would load up the freezer and haul a load back home. We also did the same thing to get Blue Bell to Ruidoso, NM to our cabin. Now it is sold there so we have finally quit being Blue Bell bootleggers.
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If you have an Outback Steakhouse around, they carry Blue Bell. You can even buy a 3 gal container from them for like $25.
 
Paladin said:
I am glad you like your ice cream. However, I find your stats unpersuasive. Using sales numbers to support a taste discussion is a waste of time.

By your measure, Bic makes the best pens. Mc Donalds makes the best hamburgers, etc.

Sales numbers only mean lots of people buy it (whatever it is), nothing more. No relationship to quality.

Plus, if you knew anything about how fresh custard is made, you would never trot out stats on how "fresh" ice cream is. Custard is made on the spot, and unsold custard is destroyed at the end of the day. It is not made to be frozen. Ever freeze fresh custard? Gets hard as a brick. Do you know why? All ice cream (like Blue Bell and all others) is made to be frozen and shipped and consumed later. Ice cream customers want to be able to scoop their ice cream within a reasonable period of time after it leaves the freezer. That is why the testers have a measure for "overrun". That is the amount of air that is beaten into the ice cream. As you can see, that number for Blue Bell is 41%.

That is neither here nor there, as all ice creams do it, but custard does not. That is why custard is so much creamier than any ice cream.

Anyway, back to my point...touting sales volume as indicative of any particular quality standard does not work.
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I think that sales is a great indicator for product satisfaction (what we like best, it is the title of the thread), and I think that is what we are discussing, not quality. If it were quality, I would say that my father's homemade vanilla is the best quality ice cream I have ever had. It is smooth, CREAMY, and yummy to my tummy.

BTW: You are on the wrong thread if you want a quality vs. luxury topic. Someone start one and it seemed rather deep.

Anyway back to my point...If I have a product and introduce it to a market, how do I measure whether or not that market LIKES the product? HELLO....SALES$$$ DUH :p

Apparently, more people like McDonald's Hamburgers than any other. And Bic does make the best pen. I think that was also mentioned on the Quality vs. Luxury thread. Come on, more people PREFER Bic pens than any other. They would have to. They sell more pens than anyone else. Why else would these two companies have the market share in their field? Because more people like a different product? Because their's isn't the best? I live in the real world. The guy who sells the most lemonade on the corner, has the best lemonade. Plain and Simple!

WARNING THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT IS PURELY SUBJECTIVE AND DOES NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS OR BELIEFS OF ANYONE ELSE BUT ROB:

Custard sucks! It tastes like a spoonful of butter. You can have my lifetime share of custard Palidin.

Plus when you say custard, it sounds like you say turd, and I don't like ordering something that sounds like a bodily product.​
 
Blue Bell

ROOKIETURNER said:
Smitty37 said:
Smitty,

I agree with you. Taste is subjective, however when Blue Bell only has 20% market share and is #3 in the nation, that says a lot about their product. When the #1 and #2 guys have to be in 86% of the market to gain those positions.

My reponse was not to sway anyone, but to respond to someone posting a bogus "subjective" taste test panel from Cooking Illustrated, which stated some very misleading information. The information was purely subjective (other than the listing if ingredients).

My statement concerning Blue Bell being the standard was toungue and cheek. But the quote that I made was not subjective. It was factual. Blue Bell gobbles up the markets that they are in. $400 million in sales says alot about a product.

BTW, have you ever had Blue Bell's Homemade Vanilla?
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Never spent anytime to speak of in their market area....I wasn't knocking anything, I was just making a general comment.

My wife loves several flavors of icecream that i won't even eat...even if it's the only ice cream available and a couple of them are Ben & Jerry's which are known to be better than average. The last Breyer's I had was bad enough that I told my wife to find another brand even though I had always thought of Breyer's as being decent.
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Best Pen

ROOKIETURNER said:
I think that sales is a great indicator for product satisfaction (what we like best, it is the title of the thread), and I think that is what we are discussing, not quality. If it were quality, I would say that my father's homemade vanilla is the best quality ice cream I have ever had. It is smooth, CREAMY, and yummy to my tummy. Perfect example of taste...if I tasted it I might still thing Wegsten's made the best.

BTW: You are on the wrong thread if you want a quality vs. luxury topic. Someone start one and it seemed rather deep.

Anyway back to my point...If I have a product and introduce it to a market, how do I measure whether or not that market LIKES the product? HELLO....SALES$$$ DUH :p

Apparently, more people like McDonald's Hamburgers than any other. And Bic does make the best pen. (Bic and McDonald's both deliver pretty well on what they promise---which is not the prettiest pen (it is a pen that costs little and writes well) or best hamburger it is fast service, edible food, clean stores, and low price etc) I think that was also mentioned on the Quality vs. Luxury thread. Come on, more people PREFER Bic pens than any other. They would have to. They sell more pens than anyone else. Why else would these two companies have the market share in their field? Because more people like a different product? Because their's isn't the best? I live in the real world. The guy who sells the most lemonade on the corner, has the best lemonade. Plain and Simple!

WARNING THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT IS PURELY SUBJECTIVE AND DOES NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS OR BELIEFS OF ANYONE ELSE BUT ROB:​

Custard sucks! It tastes like a spoonful of butter. You can have my lifetime share of custard Palidin.​


Plus when you say custard, it sounds like you say turd, and I don't like ordering something that sounds like a bodily product.​
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Does the guy have the best....or did he just have more than the guy who had the best and sold out?????

Taste in anything is subjective and that's a good thing, you like what you like, I like what I like and the guy behind the tree likes what he likes. Fortunately we live where all three can probably get what they want.
 
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I can't have just one favorite ice cream. Top three:
1. Chocolate/coffee gelato. & if I could be eating it at some Piazza in Rome, that would be heaven.
2. Chocolate chip. Any brand as long as it is high in vanilla content and has real chocolate chips & not those imposter chocolate shavings.
3. Hand turned vanilla. Reminds me of the summers of my childhood.

Don
 
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