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.
- Blue Bell Dr Pepper Float Ice Cream
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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.
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!