SoCo Creamery Salted Caramel
A food review by Daniel B.
Ice cream is serious business in the northeast. We are very lucky in that there are many places to get high quality, hard ice cream that is made in small batches. Recently, I led a multi-county tour of five Capital Region favorite ice cream stands, and we discovered a few interesting things.
1) Even great ice cream makers don’t nail every flavor.
2) Some great producers can utterly fail in multiple flavors.
Most likely your favorite ice cream place has as much to do with nostalgia than the actual product itself. Whether it was the stuff you grew up with as a kid, the place you went during some amazing vacation, or the local stand which has become a summertime ritual for your family, there are lots of emotional connections we have that make ice cream taste great.
Having never been to the SoCo Creamery in Great Barrington, MA I can say with certainty that my perceptions of this ice cream are not influenced by fond memories. However, after trying their Salted Caramel, I’m tempted to hop in the car and make a pilgrimage to this epicenter of adult pleasure.
There are some people who will scrunch up their noses at the thought of salty ice cream. I get that. But for them, I have a few more accessible parallels.
- Honey glazed ham
- Chocolate covered pretzels
- Reese’s peanut butter cups
None of these are fancy, gourmet treats, but all of them leverage the powerful combination of contrasting flavors existing in a harmonious balance.
Or think about it this way. You are at the movies and you have a bite of salty popcorn. That makes you want a sip of sweet soda. Which in turn, makes you crave a taste of salt. This plays into the physiology of taste, and we are hardwired to enjoy it. Nobody knows this better than the folks at Coca-Cola.
So do not hesitate to try this creamy blend of lightly salted caramel ice cream, with thick gooey globs of rich caramel. It’s not salty, but the salt does serve to keep the sugar in balance and create a richer more complex flavor profile. For context, a serving only contains 100mg of sodium where a non-salted super-premium ice cream has 50mg of sodium.
It just so happens that SoCo recently participated in Boston’s annual Scooper Bowl fundraiser. There Tina and Bethany, two ice cream obsessed bloggers declared, “The booth that inspired and intrigued us the most was SoCo Creamery.” And Bethany went on to award her top pick of the day to their Salted Caramel (Tina preferred the Lemon Poppy Seed).
But the thing that really ignites my desire to hop in the car and make the long drive to Great Barrington is that Roadfood.com gushes over their hot fudge sauce.
The good news is that word of SoCo Creamery is spreading and pints of their ice cream can now be found beyond Massachusetts and into Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. It’s the exact same stuff in the cartons as they make in the store, with the same commitment to small-batch production and “all natural” ingredients.
Truth be told, I’d prefer it if they could leave out the carageenan, guar gum and xantham gum. But I know I’m fighting an uphill battle on this one. And if you buy an occasional pint of Ben & Jerry’s, these ingredients aren’t strangers to your ice cream.
Here in New York, you can find SoCo Creamery ice cream at the Old Chatham Country Store and Adams Fairacre Farms. Plus there are plenty of places closer to Manhattan where it’s also available.
Although maybe you are like me, and inspired by tales of magnificent hot fudge to go along with their enticing flavor combinations. Hopefully I’ll finally get to Great Barrington soon, because ice cream season doesn’t last forever.
About Daniel B.
A west coast transplant now living in Albany, Daniel Berman is applying his communication strategy background to food writing with the ultimate goal of improving the culinary landscape in the Capital Region. He writes the FUSSYlittleBLOG and contributes regularly to All Over Albany.