Blue Bunny have expanded their line of ice cream flavors, and I hope that means they’re expanding their distribution too.  While they have distro-deals in place with major retailers like Walmart, for whatever reason, in the Bay Area with our lack of Wally World’s, Blue Bunny is kind of hard to find.  Many grocery stores carry the novelty items like the mini cones, but quarts and pints of the Bunny are hard to come across.  Growing up in Nebraska where Blue Bunny was much more common, I was super stoked to find a fresh new flavor at a local discount grocery store.  Mint Cookie Crunch combines mint ice cream with fudge swirls and mint chocolate cookie chunks.

The mint base is light and creamy with a refreshing minty-ness that steers clear of any dominant peppermint flavor.  It’s a pleasant and genuine base that isn’t too sweet or too powerful in any way.  The fudge swirl has a very distinct Hershey’s chocolate syrup kind of flavor with just a bit more thickness than the stuff that pours from the brown bottle.  It’s a little light milk chocolatey for what I would commonly associate with fudge, but it seems fitting for a swirl swimming in glowing green cream.

The cookie “chunks” pop up in the form of little balls that have a big satisfying crunch and haven’t lost any of their bold cookie texture.  This crunchy-preservation is achieved by coating the balls in chocolate so the actual cookie never makes contact with the melty dairy.  It’s a clever move very similar to the cookies in Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Peppermint Crunch (RIP) and they work just as well here as they did in that more chocolate heavy pint.  It’s a very different experience than a mint cookies and cream, and I appreciate the crunch factor that adds extra depth and excitement to the ice cream.  The flavor isn’t as mint-forward as the heralded Girl Scouts Thin Mint, but the cookies definitely have a minty-ness that let’s me know it isn’t just a chocolate cookie.

When you get all of the components together in one bite they work together seamlessly with a lovely balance of mint, chocolate, and smooth dairy.  Blue Bunny have put together a really solid product that isn’t as intense or fatty as a super premium ice cream but tastes of significantly higher quality and less gum-filler-y than Dreyers or Breyers.  A fantastic middle-of-the-road scoop that’s a great bang for your buck.

Rating: 8/10
Found at: Grocery Outlet ($2.99)