It’s the most wonderful time of the year…to overdose on mint. While winter is the perfect time to let the chill in the air become the chill in your mouth, there’s one candy that reps the cooling effect year round like no other – YORK Peppermint Pattie’s. Thick, dense, chewy, and intensely minty, it’s the kind of candy you either love or hate, and fortunately for me I get down with the choco-mint overload. Continuing their tradition of collaborating with all of the biggest candy brands, Baskin Robbins have brought back the aptly titled YORK Peppermint Pattie for December, which combines mini YORK peppermint patties and a rich dark chocolate mint ribbon swirled in mint ice cream.

Let it be known before going into this tingly wonderland that if you don’t like your mint served with a side of mint, dipped in some mint, and garnished with a minty bow – you might want to steer clear of this scoop. However, if you generally like mint in your dessert, this one is very well balanced. The mint ice cream, while definitely minty, is actually pretty calm and soothing in the grand scheme of this flavor. It’s dense and creamy with a minty-ness more akin to a smooth after dinner mint that melts in your mouth than a hard peppermint candy. On its own it’s nothing to write home about, but it’s a great backdrop to the more aggressive minty elements in the rest of the scoop.

The mini YORK patties snap with a lovely dark chocolate crunch and come across much more cocoa heavy than they do mint. Their smaller size means less dense peppermint filling, and while there’s definitely some mint ooze on the inside of the choco-discs it doesn’t slap you in the face like toothpaste – which is a good thing. Bigger chunks of crushed up full-sized patties might have brought a more rich intensity, but I appreciate the bittersweet chocolate pop that the mini’s bring to the peppermint party.

My favorite part of this flavor, and surprisingly the most mint-dominant, is the dark chocolate mint ribbon. It has a distinctly sharp peppermint zing and wonderful rich creamy texture that dissolves on my tongue like a thin fudge, tying everything together beautifully. It provides the mouth-cooling effect that I want from a YORK-branded product and works in tandem with the base to produce an ideal ice cream version of the silver-clad candy. A bite with a nice slab of ribbon and mini pattie gets the Christmas chorus singing and everything feels truly comfy cozy.

Rating: 8/10

Found at: Baskin Robbins ($2.99)