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.