Review: The Udder Guy's "Roasted Coconut" Ice Cream

Today we bring you a review of an ice cream we actually had to purchase twice because somebody decided to eat half of the container without taking any photos. These things happen when you're dead tired and crave ice cream. Especially when that ice cream is The Udder Guy's Roasted Coconut, made by a local company that operates out of Cowichan Bay, Vancouver Island.

You know an ice cream manufacturer is grassroots when they don't have different cartons for each flavour. And the carton design looks like it might have been a high school art project. And the flavour is put on the rim of the lid on a sticker. And it's written in Comic Sans MS (my least favourite font of all time). But we'll try not to hold it against them. After all, it's what's inside that counts.

Hard to tell much from this photo, but basically what we have is a yellowy-white ice cream with bits of shredded and roasted coconut throughout (and not in skimpy amounts either). According to The Udder Guy's website, "We husk, shred and roast all our own coconut to avoid commercial shredded coconut, which often contains sodium meta-bisulphate, the most highly regulated additive in Canada. This product is banned in many parts of the world. (It is used to clean equipment in brewing companies.)" We don't really know if this is actually a common concern with commercially available shredded coconut, but if someone is willing to do that much work with their own coconuts, we're willing to take their word for it. It's times like this that I wish I had paid better attention in that food science class... 

So is the taste of this flavour enough to make us willing to overlook the less-than-flashy carton design? Heck yes it is!

This ice cream is smooth and creamy and doesn't feel or taste like it has a ton of chemicals in it, which is refreshing. The ice cream base has a nice, sweet coconut flavour to it that isn't TOO sweet or overpowering. It reminds me a bit of coconut extract rather than eating actual coconut. The coconut shreds are well toasted so the flavour really comes out, and you can tell that, unlike a lot of commercially available shredded coconut, it is not sweetened. Which is nice, because the sweetness of the ice cream itself is sufficient. We both really, really liked it. What this ice cream really tastes like is MORE, which definitely made having to purchase it twice easy to swallow!

Recommend to a friend? Definitely. This would pair well with a variety of desserts, and unless you hate coconut, you will probably love this. Don't shy away from the basic-looking carton: this stuff is dynamite!
Repurchase? J + B: Already have, and would again. Can't wait to try the other flavours by this local company!