Straus – Brown Sugar Banana
The Flavor so Nice I Ate it Twice
The brand Straus Family Creamery is one of those “organic” positioned products that can be found in most Whole Foods Markets, and this is important for two reasons.
- It gives off a slightly more pretentious and healthy feeling to it, and affluent housewives will lose their shit for it.
- This means there’s going to be a cost premium for something like this.
Both those things said, if we take out the feux health component and the fact that it’s sold at a more expensive grocery store, the ice creams are still solid, and deserve the same recognition as the others. Pints are around $6-8 normally, and can be found on sale for as low as $5.49. Which… in all honesty, is pretty damn good. It may be around $2 more than the average pint cost at a regular grocery store, but make no mistake. At Whole Foods, pints can easily go for $9-13 depending on the brand.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, onto the pint.
The Brown Sugar Banana Pint
So the way I consumed this flavor isn’t exactly like
It was lunch. I was determined to eat a pint of this flavor, and even more determined to unlock the secrets of this flavor that my coworker, Megan, so graciously brought to my attention. So I went to the local Whole Foods, picked up a pint, and brought it back to the office. Giving a nod to Megan, I open this bad boy up, and from the first bite, I instantly knew I was on board…
And then I blacked out. I’m not entirely sure what happened. Before I knew it, the entire pint was empty, and I had no notes, nor any true recollection of the flavor I just experienced. Just a vague notion that I liked it and was on board.
Megan the comes up to me and asks me how it tasted.
“Delicious?” I answer. I can’t quite piece any detail of why it’s good, so I just throw a couple of food adjectives together, and try to make a break for it before she was onto me.
Unfortunately this wasn’t the case. She knows that I usually give intense ice cream reviews, so this vague string of words doesn’t cut it. Unfortunately for my pride, I can’t let it end like this. I go back to the Whole Foods and get another pint.
This time, I go through the pint with a notebook out, and pen in hand as I eat with my left and write with my right. After it’s over, once again, I can’t recollect this flavor from memory. But fortunately for me, in the moment I was able to take some pretty decent notes, and describe what happened.
Brown Butter Banana Flavor Profile
From the very first bite (the second time around), I was on board. I mean, we’re talking bananas, brown sugar, and chocolate chips; can I get a hell’s yeah? We’re talking some next level bananas foster with chocolate. But there’s more to it than that. The banana is soft, subtle, and sincere. No heavy fake banana taste, and as the second wave of brown sugar flavor rolls through, the banana flavor simply drops to the back as a beautiful supporting member. The brown sugar provides both a sweetness and stronger molasses taste that brings depth. Then after this combo comes the third wave- the chocolate. And the two waves coincide in a way that is sweet, deep, with gentle banana undertones. I realized this would be absolutely perfect in milkshake form.
As I continued my consumption journey forward, I began to notice a shift. The more ice cream you eat, the more the chocolate comes to be the center stage player in this ice cream team. At first the chocolate is just lingering a little bit longer. But five or six bites later? It becomes chocolate accented by the aforementioned banana and brown sugar tastes. After the pint, I could barely taste anything else aside from chocolate.
I think this is what caused the memory erasing phenomenon. As the chocolate begins to overpower the other two, your memory of these two prior tastes begin to evaporate like water in a desert.
Brown Sugar Banana Conclusion
I will admit, a quart of ice cream might not be the best idea for the average consumer. If I had to break up the two pints further, I’d say the first pint was better than the second, because it didn’t sit as heavy the first time around. It’s an absolutely delicious flavor in small quantities, due to the subtle nuances of the banana, brown sugar, and chocolate chips, all coming in waves, and playing off one another in concert. If it had a single flaw, it’d say it’s the overpowering chocolate chip aftertaste when eaten in large quantities. Otherwise, this flavor was delicious, and I do not regret eating a quart’s worth of this flavor for a second.
If you need to find out where you can buy a pint of Straus for yourself, you can use their store locator here.
Tell Me Your Favorite Grocery Store Pints
I’m always willing to try a good ice cream, and if you have found one you would like me to try and review, send me a message on my contact page. I love to learn of other people’s favorites, and hope you’ll be willing to share your pint of happiness with me. Just let me know the brand, flavor, and where I can buy it, and I’ll see about adding it to my freezer. I hope to hear from you soon!
