I don’t scream for ice cream, I sort of give a half-assed whimper. Considering all the junk food and candy that I talk about here at the Armpit, I’m actually not a big fan dessert or candy. If I have to choose a dessert, I enjoy simple stuff like milk and cookies. Not surprisingly, chocolate chip cookies are one of my favorites, and if they’re homemade I like them even more. But when you’re dealing with a strange guy like me, it can never be that easy. Milk and cookies aren’t much work to whip up, but not in my case. I like my chocolate chip cookies homemade, and WITHOUT the chocolate chips! To me they just interfere with my favorite part of the cookie.
Amongst my profusion of hangups, quirks, and pet peeves, I also loathe the chips of chocolate in Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. The funny part is, I’m not a chocolate hater, it’s just that the chips ultimately get in the way of my enjoyment of the dessert. The chips in mint chocolate chip ice cream always get stuck in my teeth and it’s super annoying. I’d like to enjoy the chocolate but I can’t because it makes a pit stop in my molars and doesn’t come out until I brush my teeth. If I could just get the pastel green mint ice cream sans the chocolate chips, I’d be a pig in shit. The only way I could take it to the next level is if I had mint (remember: no chocolate chips) in “soft ice cream” form rather than “hard.”
When I was a kid I remember telling my sister that I liked letting my ice cream turn into “soup.” Once my ice cream liquefied I would just drink it right out of the bowl. Drinkable ice cream was my favorite, and still is. I even like to let my ICEE’s and Slurpee’s melt so I could get the prime flavor of the syrup without the minuscule ice pellets getting in the way and freezing my brain. To sum up what you’ve just read: I like my Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream melted and without chocolate chips in it.
On my weekly trip to Wegman’s, I was waiting in line to check out but got distracted by a plastic bottle of green liquid in a refrigerated section near the exit. Wegman’s has an extra dairy section at the front of the store for convenience, in case you don’t feel like running all the way to the back of the store just to grab a gallon of milk. I grabbed the “Intense” Mint Chip flavor by Upstate Farms immediately as if I was the only person who knew this treasure was on the shelf!
Aside from name dropping their own brand name about 62 times, (Intense!) the label on the back of the bottle describes the drink as “…a creamy and indulgent drink…” Then the label goes on to say “This is the drink of choice for the mint chip ice cream lover on the go.” It’s fairly awesome that they’re actually marketing a drink to a group of people known as “mint chip ice cream lovers.” I never realized I was part of that demographic, but I like it! The Intense Mint Chip contains the typical benefits of milk such as vitamins and protein, but unfortunately has 35 MG’s of cholesterol in case you’d rather not have a heart attack.
Intense Mint Chip is the type of drink you want to sip on a crisp moonlit night while you’re rolling down the highway as the street lights are streaking past you like your in light speed and the stereo is blasting Laura Branigan’s “Self Control.” It doesn’t matter that you’re sipping milk…you still feel really cool. Trust me.
Considering how exalted the Mint Chip flavor is, the Orange Scream can’t come close to its greatness. Think of the Intense Orange Scream as the sub par sequel, or the redheaded stepchild of the Intense milk family. Upstate Farms falls short with their Orange Scream, which is yet another failed attempt at creating the classic orange cream flavor. (Sunkist also failed recently with their miserable orange cream float.) One of the major strikes against Orange Scream is that it substitutes what’s supposed to be a nondescript “cream” flavor for a strong vanilla flavor. The cream shouldn’t necessarily be defined as “vanilla” because then it has the chance to overpower the orange flavor. The vanilla flavor may be forgiven if it isn’t a true “vanilla bean” flavor since a regular “no frills” vanilla would work better. There’s an exact balance of orange and cream flavor that needs to be perfected to achieve orange cream paradise. On a positive note, unlike the mint chip, the orange scream is creamy yet still low fat. Its label is pretty exciting or should I say…INTENSE! Even though I didn’t enjoy their Orange Scream formula, I have to hand it to Upstate Farms just for their sheer variety of offerings such as Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla, Cookies and Cream, and Mocha Java. Now all us Star Wars fans need is an “Intense Blue: A New Hope Special Edition Milk.” I hear it’s going to be high in midichlorians. Come on, where’s the freakin marketing people now? Can I get some kickbacks for that?
