Imagine this. A small operation out of Waynesboro, VA, allows you to create your own ice cream flavors, where they will hand-churn each individual batch from local and organic ingredients. You can purchase your creation in batches 4 or 8. You log onto the Perfect Flavor website, your imagination flowing. Decadent combinations of organic cream bases and exotic mix-ins float through your head. Should you go with sweet cream? How about French Custard. Oooh, Cheesecake sounds so good. But you've never tried mousse ice cream before.
After some wrangling, you decide to go with Sweet Cream, a perennial favorite. You excitedly reach the next step in this choose-your-own-ice-cream adventure: The base flavor. Chocolate, Vanilla, Caramel, or Coffee. Four strong contenders. Moving almost independently of your brain, like an Ouiji board planchette, your mouse clicks on Caramel.
Now for the fun part: Mix-Ins. Do you go with Mexican Aztec Chocolate? A double-dose of creamy caramel? Have a little fun with hot chocolate and marshamallows? Create a spiced-up blend of cardamom, cinnamon, and star anise? Do a little savory saffron and white pepper? Get a little earthy with hibiscus and cloves? Make a breakfast out of it with scones and biscotti? Go all Frenchified with crisp Macarons? Relax yourself with Rooibox Tea? Seduce someone with truffles and raspberries?
Being the ice cream purist that you (I) are (am), you go for Cinnamon buns and a drizzle of caramel sauce. You give your flavor a name - Fatty Bom Batty Breakfast Pint (you'll work on the coining next time) and add this bad boy to the cart while you whip out your Visa.
Well, you'd better put that away and grab your Amex Black Card, because for 8 pints of this ice cream, you're paying a whopping $194.99!!! BEFORE TAX.
You read that right. One hundred and ninety four dollars and ninety nine cents for 8 pints of ice cream.
Lets do that math. That is TWENTY FOUR DOLLARS AND THIRTY SEVEN CENTS A PINT.
And that is for the 8 pint deal! If you want to limit yourself and only order four pints, you're paying $41.25 a PINT. A PINT!
I'm sorry, but the last time I checked, we were in a recession. Now don't get me wrong. Ice cream is my weakness in which I can eat it morning, noon, and night. But who has two hundred dollars lying around for ice cream right now? Or ever? This ice cream could be hand-churned by the Dalai Lama, washed with holy water from The Pope himself, blessed on a Talmud by the highest Rabbi in Israel, and sprinkled in dust from the surface of Mars, I still would have a hard time paying for a $25 pint of ice cream right now.
All kidding aside, I don't mean to give the company a hard time. Not at all, actually. I completely embrace the concept. The flavors and mix-ins are outstanding. My mind was racing when going through the site. And I am sure they produce an amazing product, of which the price is completely justified (they are HAND CHURNED). I wish them only the best of luck with their enterprise, as I hope I can begin my own culinary enterprise one day. And if I had the money I would absolutely support them, because I think we all should support businesses like this right now, and I think they have an outstanding product that they are selling.
But for now, I'll have to stick with my pretty little red Cuisinart Ice Cream maker. But hopefully one day, I won't have to think twice about buying a $25 (or $40) pint of ice cream. I'll just make that pint last a looooong time.
If you can, definitely check out the site! And support them!
