Starbucks Golden Turmeric coffee

So, one of my summer joys is making my own iced coffee. I add brown sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, and a bit of cayenne to fresh ground beans and cold steep them for 24 hours. It's absolutely delicious, and is my attempt to sort of mimic a Thai iced coffee.

Surfing coffee on my local Dillon's (Kroger) grocery site, I ran across THIS:



Now, my favorite iced mochas are from Black Cat in Ashland (their Thai iced coffee is fabulous and there's nothing like their spicy mocha when it's cold), and my favorite beans are this Malawi Mzuzu from Paramour (here in Manhattan), but it's nearly $30 a pound. It's a global pandemic and we're taking about a $25k-$30k hit to our household income this year. $30 coffee, for now, has to go.

Trust me, I'd rather support the local place than Starbucks, but here we are.

I was so pleasantly surprised by this coffee. I almost didn't buy it because I thought, well, I'll just put turmeric in my own coffee, but this has what at least looks like relatively coarse ground spices in it, including turmeric, but also ginger and black pepper. It's legitimately delicious. I got myself some sweetened condensed milk and was a happy happy stay-at-home camper this morning.

Haagen-Dazs Crispy Trio Layers Ruby Cacao Crackle vs. Ben & Jerry's Caramel Cheesecake Chocolate Truffl

Apparently Ruby Cacao is the exciting new kid on the chocolate block. The actual ice cream in this is pistachio and sweet cream. I love good pistachio ice cream. This is not particularly good pistachio ice cream, though. I mean, it's not bad, it's just not very pistachio-y. The ruby cacao is interesting. I'm glad I've tried it and I wouldn't say no to it in something else, but I'm not totally sold on it. I think the ruby cacao makes it smell a little funky -- a little moldy, sort of?

That's all to say that this is fine. I mean, it's ice cream, so it's not bad, but I won't buy it again.





But this? THIS is spectacular.





I mean, this was surprisingly good. It's maybe in my top 5 ice creams. It's definitely in my top 10. Just, seriously? I mean, caramel cheesecake ice cream? YESSSSSSSS. Graham cracker covered cheesecake pieces in it? Oh hells yes. And a chocolate cookie swirl? Good lord yes. I was skeptical -- I've had bad cheesecake ice cream before, but this tastes like actual cheesecake. Good cheesecake. Have I mentioned how good this is?

Honestly, I'm a salty over sweet girl. I mean, I'd rather not have to choose (hot french fries dipped into a Wendy's Frosty, anyone?), but if I had to, I go french fries and potato chips all day long. I can walk by ice cream without stopping, and pretty often, I just have a spoonful at a time. Like, a single spoonful, not a spoonful at a time until the whole bowl is gone. But this is one of those ice creams that I could sit down and eat the entire pint in one sitting.

So, in the head to head, it's no contest. Skip the Haagen-Dazs and go straight for the Ben & Jerry's.