Not As Fruity As One Might Hope, Ben & Jerry’s Limited Edition Pina Colada Ice Cream Is Still Worth Trying!

The Good: Tastes good, Not terrible on the nutrition front
The Bad: The pineapple flavor is not exceptional, More expensive than other ice creams.
The Basics: Ben & Jerry’s Pina Colada Ice Cream is a limited batch ice cream that is worth trying, but is unlikely to be missed when the company stops making it.


Ben & Jerry’s has done a good job of shaking up its familiar flavors in recent years with limited edition batches of ice cream. This summer, one of the flavors I was most excited to try was Pina Colada. Having gotten through almost the entire pint I picked up, it is refreshing that the Ben & Jerry’s Pina Colada more or less lives up to the expectations one might have for such a flavor. In fact, the coconut flavor in this ice cream is so true that it almost entirely overwhelms the chunks of pineapple present in the ice cream.

Basics

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream comes in a pint container. The Pina Colada Ice Cream is a mostly smooth ice cream with small chunks of pineapple. In fact, the pineapple was prevalent enough that at least every other spoonful of the ice cream has pineapple chunks in it.

At (locally) $5.99 a pint, the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is an expensive ice cream. While this might not have an incredibly balanced flavor, it is made of decent ingredients, though it is not quite worth the price. This is a Limited Edition flavor that is hit or miss and it is not surprising that Ben & Jerry’s at least tested the market by presenting this as a limited edition ice cream.

Ease Of Preparation

The Pina Colada Ice Cream is a lightly loaded ice cream. As an ice cream, preparation is ridiculously simple: one need only open the top of the container, scoop out a half cup and consume! There is no trick to preparing or eating the Pina Colada Ice Cream!

Taste

On its own, Pina Colada ice cream smells strongly of coconut. The aroma is instantly familiar and inviting to anyone who likes coconut! Ben & Jerry’s clearly knew what they were doing with the coconut base to the Pina Colada ice cream.

On the tongue, Ben & Jerry’s Pina Colada ice cream tastes creamy, sweet and dry, exactly like one might expect from Pina Colada ice cream. The distinctive flavor of coconut is a little less dry than one might expect if they are familiar with coconut milk, but otherwise, the taste is very purely that of coconut. The pineapple chunks in the ice cream manifest as a texture more than a flavor, at least while the ice cream is exceptionally cold. As the ice cream warms up a little, the pineapple asserts itself as a sweet and fruity aftertaste more than a pure and distinctive pineapple flavor.

This ice cream has almost no aftertaste to it, which is nice. The creamy nature of this ice cream even eliminates the dryness of the coconut flavoring.

Nutrition

The Ben & Jerry’s Pina Colada Ice Cream is a fairly light ice cream with medium additives (the density of the pineapple changes greatly with the temperature of the ice cream). The pint represents four half-cup servings. In the half-cup serving, there are 220 calories, 120 of which are from fat. The thirteen grams of fat represent 20% of the RDA of fat, with 40% of one’s RDA of saturated fat coming in the 8 grams of saturated fat in this ice cream. One serving has 65 mg of cholesterol (that’s 22% of the RDA!) and 55 mg of Sodium (2% RDA). The only other real nutrients are four grams of protein and 10% of the RDA of Calcium and 8% of the RDA of Vitamin A in the Pina Colada Ice Cream.

Ben & Jerry’s has decent ingredients, too. Made primarily of Cream, Skim milk, and water! There is nothing unpronounceable in the ingredients list. The Pina Colada Ben & Jerry’s is Kosher, but not marked as gluten free. There are no allergy warnings on the package, but it is fair trade certified.

Storage/Clean-Up

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is both a frozen and a dairy product, so it is pretty obvious that it must be kept frozen in order to remain viable. Kept frozen it remains fresh for months; my pint had an expiration date of October 10, 2014.

The Pina Colada ice cream is fairly light and it would be surprising if it left stains outside of dark fabrics. As well, when the ice cream melts and gets onto fabrics, it will require one to wash it right out. On nonporous surfaces, the ice cream wipes off exceptionally easily.

Overall

The Ben & Jerry’s Pina Colada ice cream is good, but not as pineapple flavored to balance the coconut, making it less incredible than one might hope.

For other Ben & Jerry’s ice creams, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Limited Edition Cotton Candy
New York Super Fudge Chunk
Cheesecake Brownie
Willie Nelson's Country Peach Cobbler

5.5/10

For other food reviews, please visit my Food Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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