The perfect treat for Boston’s summer
J.P. Licks’s new ice cream flavors are worth melting for
Courtesy of Darren DeLuca
★★★★★
J.P. Licks
Ice cream, $
150 Charles Street
Boston, MA 02114
Hours:
11 a.m.–11 p.m. Daily
J.P. Licks announced the release of five new ice cream flavors for Summer 2022. Founded in 1981, J.P. Licks has boasted some of the best ice cream in Massachusetts with over 20 flavors including several dairy free ice creams and sorbets. This summer, J.P. Licks has upped their game with the release of Unicorn Crunch, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Chunky Peanut Butter Chocolate Covered Pretzel flavors as well as Sharkleberry Fin Kool-Aid sorbet and Cookies ‘n’ Cream dairy free ice cream.
Given the vast selection, I was both excited and skeptical to taste the new flavors. Ultimately, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that all the flavors were amazing, with Unicorn Crunch reigning supreme. Unicorn Crunch features bright pink cake batter swirled with multi-colored sequin candies. Speaking to the motivation behind this brilliant flavor, J.P. Licks’s founder Vincent Petryk said, “I have a 26 year-old child who still loves unicorns. I was thinking about her one day and thought ‘I should make a unicorn flavor.’” Trust me when I say this flavor is as delicious as it is colorful.
And for those of you who love cinnamon, you will be delighted with J.P. Licks’s Cinnamon Toast Crunch ice cream. I myself was never a huge fan of cinnamon-flavored ice cream. However, I fell in love with this flavor, which contained Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal pieces without the cinnamon taste being too strong. Talking about this ice cream, Petryk mentioned that he started eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal and thought it would make a good ice cream flavor. He said, “You’re already putting cereal in milk, so it’s almost like a no-brainer!”
While each ice cream flavor is unique in its own way, the idea of having dark chocolate covered pretzels and roasted, salted peanuts in the Chunky Peanut Butter Chocolate Covered Pretzel ice cream was particularly innovative. As a native of Philadelphia, Petryk drew inspiration from his hometown: “Philadelphia is a place where pretzels are kind of a big thing.” He continued, “When I was a boy, they used to serve ice cream for a penny and put a pretzel stick in your cup of ice cream. Since I was a child, I became a fan of chocolate covered pretzels, and one thing led to another, and eventually we ended up with this flavor!”
J.P. Licks also released two vegan flavors, a sorbet and a dairy-free ice cream. The Sharkleberry Fin Kool-Aid sorbet features the more dominant Kool-Aid flavor with a subtle tropical twist of strawberry, banana, and orange. While I am not super enthusiastic about sorbets, I felt that this was one of the best sorbets I’ve ever had due in large part to the Kool Aid flavor. However, if I had to pick between the vegan options, I would choose the Cookies ‘n’ Cream dairy-free ice cream.
The dairy-containing version of Cookies ‘n’ Cream has been a long time favorite at J.P. Licks. Petryk explained that it was indeed the popularity of the regular Cookies ‘n’ Cream dairy ice cream that motivated the company to come up with a dairy-free version that would let vegans enjoy the flavor too. Petryk further talked about the growing popularity of vegan ice cream and said that we could “expect more vegan flavors in the coming days.” The vegan version of the Cookies ‘n’ Cream flavor combines dairy-free coconut-oat ice cream with lots of crushed cookies and tastes no different than its dairy counterpart. This flavor packs all the deliciousness of the Cookies ‘n’ Cream dairy ice cream and presents it to the vegan community. In fact, this is one of Petryk’s favorite ice cream flavors among the new releases.
Overall, I would highly recommend visiting a J.P. Licks store to check out the newly released ice cream flavors right away. And, remember: “Summer would not be summer without ice cream!”