Review: Jeni's New Summer Ice Cream Flavors Are A Delicious Way To Beat The Heat

Who among us hasn't enjoyed the frosty reprieve of a freshly scooped ice cream on a hot summer day? Far more than just a sugary dessert, ice cream is a summertime staple, the soft and melty scoops piled onto cones at every beach, boardwalk, and baseball game. For many of us, ice cream allows us a momentary escape, the colorful tubs of inventive flavors leveling us all to a state of blissful childlike wonder.

No ice cream store better understands imagination than Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, a scoop shop founded in Columbus, Ohio. If you've been lucky enough to enjoy a scoop from one of the 30 Jeni's locations nationwide, you'd know that the shop is more than just chocolate and vanilla bean – it's a collection of flavors you won't see anywhere else, with ingredients you likely would have never thought to try. The summer collection, featuring flavors like watermelon taffy, popcorn brittle, and toasted s'mores, encapsulates all of the best parts of summertime: beach trips, carnival rides, blazing campfires, and long days at the park. I sampled five of the six new summer options and an additional limited time offering, exploring the taste and texture of each inventive flavor. Long story short? You'll want to give every flavor a try, even if you're not so sure about it — Jeni's has quite a way of surprising you.

I'm not sure what's more clever about Goose Tracks: the flavor or the name. A spin on parlor-shop classic Moose Tracks, which is made up of vanilla ice cream, peanut butter cups, and chocolate swirl, Goose Tracks flips the script on the classic, incorporating instead a fruity blackberry-raspberry buttermilk base. The tart, perfectly sweet purple-ish ice cream is mixed with bittersweet chocolate chunks, which not only add a rich, chocolatey element but also add much-needed texture to what is otherwise a creamy sorbet.

Of course, the cleverness of the name is two-fold. A collaboration with Goose, the purple-pink chocolate-dotted flavor is also considerably named and designed to reflect the funky aesthetic of the indie-rock band (the pint was even designed by the same artist as the album cover). The flavor is punchy, tart, unique, and fresh, and pretty much exactly what I'd want a cone of while listening to Goose's tracks — or anytime, really, as I'm already an avid fan of blackberry and raspberry. Don't like fruit? Maybe skip this one for one of the more salty (yes, salty) flavors on the list.

If your summer sweet tooth looks a little more like kettle corn and Cracker Jacks, you're still in good company at Jeni's. A saltier take on ice cream, the popcorn brittle is a surprising flavor, but one made for people seeking something on the savory side. Of course, it isn't anything like eating a bag of cheese-covered movie theatre popcorn — instead, it draws inspiration from a carnival or county fair, the flavor matching that salty-sweet smell of fried desserts filling the air.

How, exactly, the sweet smell of kettle corn and funnel cakes is turned into ice cream is part of the magic of Jeni's pints. The base is creamy but straightforward, a smooth vanilla best described as old fashioned in flavor. Incorporated generously throughout are small kernels of corn toffee crunch, which essentially taste like crisp pieces of Cracker Jack. Aside from being impressively crunchy while drenched in creamy vanilla, the corn toffee also carries the flavor, as the ice cream takes on a warm, faintly salty caramel flavor. This is the pint made for those who usually just order vanilla — it's classic with a twist, but nothing too sweet, fruity, or overdone.

Speaking of classics, few frozen desserts are as beloved as the iconic root beer float. Made up of frothy root beer and creamy old-fashioned vanilla, the treat is a perfect mashup of sodapop fizz with milkshake texture, making it both a spoon-friendly and straw-worthy dessert. If fizz isn't really your thing but you love the taste of vanilla and sassafras (or at least sassafras syrup), the Jeni's pint of root beer float might be your best way of enjoying the dessert, because it's a near-exact replication.

I have to admit that this flavor isn't one of my favorites, though it isn't for lack of accuracy. The root beer flavor is spot on, but perhaps overwhelmingly so — almost as though it's missing the key element of the dessert, the vanilla ice cream. Someone at Jeni's must have had the same thought, because the pint is filled with small, gooey marshmallows that add a hint of vanilla with creamy, melty texture. Needless to say,  this isn't a bad flavor by any means, it just needs something beside it to mellow the strong root beer flavor. This pint is a good one to keep on hand for pairing with gooey, melty brownies — and, funny enough, vanilla ice cream.

I know what you're thinking, and I'm here to tell you that it's not nearly as bad as it sounds — in fact, Pink Bubble Gum ended up being one of my favorite flavors. Truthfully, it's been a long time since I've chewed any pink bubblegum, and I was having a hard time imagining how the sugary, slightly plasticky, faintly fruity flavor would translate to an ice cream. Even my secondary tester, who normally loves all things fruity and sweet, admitted he wasn't sure about this one. It turns out we should have trusted Jeni's — as usual, it nailed the flavor, and this time it's in the best way.

Just like real bubblegum would be, this ice cream is made up of many fruits: The ingredient list includes strawberry, guava, mango, and passionfruit. Combined, the flavor tastes a little like raspberry sorbet, though a little milkier and creamier instead of just fruity. The juicy, musky guava is likely what gives this ice cream a bubblegum-like aftertaste, further accentuated by a surprising ingredient: cherry blossom. Described as tasting like "the first (and best) 30 seconds of classic gum," this flavor really does taste fruity, juicy, bright, and a little muted, kind of like the best stick of gum you've ever had — or probably even better. Truthfully, if this wasn't named Pink Bubble Gum it could be named after any number of sweet or tropical fruits and you'd likely not associate it with bubblegum at all ... but if I'm being honest, that isn't really a bad thing.

This is the ice cream made for watermelon lovers, which is not a proclamation I can make often. A tough flavor to work into ice cream, watermelon can easily become overly sweet or unpleasantly watery, which is likely why it's so often avoided by ice cream makers. Not Jeni's, though — the ice cream brand tackled the flavor with ease, giving us watermelon lovers an option to enjoy all summer long.

If I didn't know better, I would think this flavor is actually a sorbet. It melts a bit faster than the rest and tastes strongly fruity in a way that only sorbets can achieve. It isn't sorbet, though, and the melty quality may come from the dairy itself, being that this flavor includes yogurt in its mix. The result is tangy but distinctly creamy and sweet, which is likely what the taffy in the title is going for. This flavor tastes like a Laffy Taffy, with all of the fruity, sweet juiciness of a fresh slice of watermelon.

Is there anyone out there who doesn't like s'mores? Sweet, gooey, and a little crunchy, s'mores are the perfect balance of taste and texture, offering a range of flavors in a single make-your-own dessert. Though you can technically make s'mores in the oven, the best part of s'mores is the campfire they are made on, the open flame roasting the marshmallows into perfectly toasted golden pockets of flavor. To replicate the flavor of s'mores in an ice cream is to go against everything that ice cream is — but Jeni's captures that essence perfectly in their pint of chocolatey vanilla swirl.

Though all elements of s'mores are equally important, perhaps what makes them the most distinct from other desserts is the graham cracker flavor. Wheaty with a subtle cinnamon taste, the flavor injected into the vanilla ice cream base perfectly enhances the concept of s'mores flavoring. This pint tastes like the idea of s'mores more than like s'mores themselves, but the added crunch of actual graham crackers added to the cream makes an interesting contrast of texture that further lends to the idea of the dessert. My only note? More chocolate — but only because that's how I like my s'mores.