Conspicuous Consumption: Tasting the AmeriCone Dream

With the warmer weather, we found ourselves thinking of ice cream. Of course, we could always go for Toscanini's or JP Licks, but we've been waiting for a treat to show up in our grocery freezer - the Stephen-Colbert-inspired Ben & Jerry's flavor "AmeriCone Dream."

"AmeriCone Dream" was a big deal on the Colbert Report because Stephen Colbert was miffed that Ben & Jerry's dared to release Willie Nelson's Country Peach Cobbler at the same time. This lead to a surreal face-off between Colbert and Nelson, which was mediated by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.

We were thrilled to see AmeriCone Dream in the grocery-store freezer (Whole Foods, alas, so we paid an arm and a leg for it, but we did it for science - whatever). Colbert might appreciate that we did not see Willie Nelson's Country Peach Cobbler on the shelves, and we couldn't do a proper taste comparison.

At home, with the weather nice and warm, we tried the AmeriCone Dream, and it's as American as fudge-covered waffle cone bits in vanilla ice cream can be. The Ben & Jerry's vanilla was nice and creamy, and it melted just right, as always. The waffle cone bits were delicious as well. However, we thought that Ben & Jerry's was a little stingy with the waffle cone bits, which caused us to focus on the caramel dollops in the ice cream.

We were skeptical about the caramel, but it was a match with the fudge/waffle/vanilla mix. We recommend that Ben & Jerry's tidy up the image of Colbert on the ice-cream packaging because the caramel looks like, well, snot that landed on top of Mr. Colbert's nice new AmeriCone.

Image of the AmeriCone Dream from the Ben & Jerry's website.