Blue Bell Dr Pepper Ice Cream: An Honest Review

If you’re a Southerner with strong opinions about ice cream, you may have noticed that Blue Bell never appears in our rankings of the best ice cream. Maybe you’ve even yelled at us about it in the comments. We get it. People who love Blue Bell ice cream really love Blue Bell ice cream—and same goes for Dr Pepper. Some people are real freaks for the stuff, like Sporked’s very own Jordan Myrick. While we typically don’t taste Blue Bell products because they aren’t sold in Southern California, when we found out that the Texas-based creamery was releasing a Dr Pepper float ice cream, we knew we needed to try it. So we did what we needed to do (in short, we drafted a polite email) and the good folks at Blue Bell were kind enough to toss a couple of pints on dry ice so we could give their Dr Pepper ice cream a shot. Here’s what we thought.

New Product!

Blue Bell Dr Pepper Float Ice Cream

Blue Bell

I wasn’t totally sure what to expect from an ice cream that’s meant to emulate a soda float, but it wasn’t this. Instead of vanilla ice cream with an icy Dr Pepper swirl, Blue Bell Dr Pepper ice cream is a completely swirled creamy combo of vanilla ice cream and Dr Pepper flavored ice cream—no iciness whatsoever. While Jordan said they may have preferred the concentrated flavor of a granita-esque Dr Pepper swirl, I absolutely loved the creamy Dr Pepper ice cream. What a wild idea!

Pros: Well, the biggest pro is that this stuff is delicious. The ice cream itself is wonderfully rich and sweet. I’ve had Blue Bell ice cream on trips to the South, and this was a good reminder why people are obsessed with it. While Dr Pepper is, famously, a concoction of 23 flavors, I’d say cherry and amaretto are the most prominent in this pint. It’s great and makes the experience reminiscent of eating an ice cream sundae with a cherry on top.

Cons: We have some cherry haters in the house who thought it was a bit too cherry forward. Another taster thought it had a bit of a fake-sugar finish and wished it had a bit more depth. Personally? I’d take a bowl of this over a messy Dr Pepper float any day.

Rating:

9/10

Sporks

About the Author

Howdy! I’m Gwynedd, Sporked’s managing editor. I live in Los Angeles and have access to the best tacos the U.S. has to offer—but I’m a sucker for a crunchy Old El Paso taco night every now and then. I’ve been at Sporked since 2022 and I’m still searching frozen mozzarella sticks that can hold a candle to restaurant sticks. Why you should trust me: I’ve been a journalist for 20 years (yikes), a consumer of food for 40-plus years, and I’m truly hard pressed to think of foods I don’t like (or that I can’t tolerate at the very least). Oh and one time I cooked my way through Guy Fieri’s cookbook and wrote about the journey through Flavortown. What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s Original Savory Thins. Fat free plain yogurt (usually Fage or Nancy’s). Honeycrisp apples. Sweet cream coffee creamer for my at-home Americanos. A frozen cauliflower crust pizza and some jarred mushrooms to top it with. Old El Paso Stand ‘N Stuff taco shells and Gardein Ground Be’f, even though I think “be’f” is a nightmarish contraction. Favorite ranking: Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I don’t own a microwave (I get my cancers the old fashioned way!), so I love taste testing things that I don’t really buy to eat at home. Least favorite ranking: Soy sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I love soy sauce—but consuming that much sodium in one sitting is probably illegal in some countries. Our frozen enchilada taste test was a close second; the smell of microwaved corn tortillas still haunts me.