Even though Ice Cream isn't really considered a distinctly "American" food the way hot dogs and apple pie are, it's still an awfully popular item here. Think about it: there's ice cream itself, ice cream cakes, ice cream flavored cereal, ice cream flavored coffee, ice cream flavored gum... you see my point. Perhaps the latest addition to this lineup came earlier this month, when Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin Robbins teamed up to release a new set of iced coffee flavors, in classic ice cream flavors such as Butter Pecan and Cookie Dough. Now, even though I'm convinced that stores like Dunkin' and Starbucks are making coffee more and more of a dessert every day, (who needs to add sugar to the cup that already has caramel syrup and whipped cream?), I think it's acceptable for these flavors to be mixed with coffee. After all, coffee is more or less an optional beverage. You don't need it to survive.
Water is different. Now, you know my stance on reviewing water, (I don't like doing it), but this seemed like an exception to that rule. I'm all for the increased consumption of water, but I have to question the necessity of flavoring water like it's an ice cream. This is the stuff our bodies run on, so who thought to flavor it as though it should be served in a waffle cone? Could it be good? Absolutely. Does that make it a good idea? Absolutely not. Here we go.
Color: It's water. Take a guess.
Smell: Not what I expected. Frankly, I didn't expect anything at all. However, it really does smell like Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream. For a drink without anything artificial in it, this is rather impressive. It's a really pleasant smell, but I'm not sure how it will fare as a full on flavor.
Taste: This will surely be difficult to verbalize. They say that most of your sense of taste comes from your sense of smell, which is certainly the idea at work in this one. Most of the "flavor" of the beverage comes from the smell as you are about to drink it. As far as its actual taste goes, it's mostly just the flavor of water (if that even exists). However, the flavors themselves do kick in right as you swallow the drink, as the mint flavor becomes rather noticeable and actually quite refreshing. The chocolate flavor, which actually is very natural tasting and not at all artificial (real cocoa here), is quite light, but it helps to accent the stronger mint flavor as well. Of course, the chocolate flavor couldn't be that intense due to the lack of any sweeteners in the drink, but I still found it acceptable. Could the flavors have been a little stronger? Certainly, but overall, they made a rather pleasant water.
Rating: ****
It's certainly different. If you don't like soda but still want flavor, it should be perfect. If you want to pretend that you're eating ice cream even though you know you're lactose-intolerant, that's good too. If you want to be condescending to your friends because they aren't refined enough to appreciate the super-light flavors of this drink, power to you. Just don't expect me to drink this over actual water. Because IceCreamogen has no place on the periodic table.
