Ben & Jerry’s Salted Caramel Almond is an exclusive Safeway flavor (plus its sister stores) and, to be honest, it’s not a particularly exciting exclusive flavor.

While Walmart gets Cotton Candy, Confetti Cake, and another flavor that probably starts with the letter C, and Target gets Blonde Ambition, Berry Voluntary, and another flavor that probably starts with the letter B, Safeway stores get a safe flavor with a safe name, which I guess is appropriate for a chain called Safeway.

The safe flavor features safe vanilla bean ice cream with safe roasted almond slivers, safe fudge flakes, and a safe salted caramel swirl.

The vanilla bean ice cream is a solid base, it’s creamy, has a pleasant vanilla flavor, and there are vanilla bean specks. Although those could be tiny bits of the fudge flakes, which taste like the fudge flakes we all know and love from the dozen or so other flavors that have them.

As for the roasted almond slivers, they’re less like whole cross-sections of the nut and more like whole cross-section of the nut smashed into pieces by a hammer. Their flavor isn’t too noticeable while eating the ice cream, but very noticeable as they stick to the nooks and crannies of your molars after the rest of the ice cream has gone down your esophagus. The salted caramel swirl has a saltiness that’s stronger when I lick my lips while eating the ice cream than when the ice cream is in my mouth.

There’s almost enough of each ingredient that you can get a bit of everything in every spoonful. With each scoop it’s a textural orchestra of gooey, creamy, snappy, and crunchy and a flavor orchestra of buttery, sweet, salty, and nutty. It’s like eating the top of a Nestle Drumstick beaten with a better ingredient stick.

It’s hard to go wrong with the combination of vanilla ice cream, chocolate, caramel, and nuts. It’s like combining rainbows, glitter, and a unicorn. With either of those combos, you know you’re going to have a good time. And while I had fun with Ben & Jerry’s Salted Caramel Almond Ice Cream, it wasn’t too exciting and tasted like something I’ve had before.

It was a safe fun, like hitting a piñata with a foam bat, without a blindfold, and doing it in the virtual world with VR goggles.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 290 calories, 150 calories from fat, 17 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 70 milligrams of cholesterol, 140 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 26 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: It’s like eating the top of a Nestle Drumstick that’s been beaten with a better ingredient stick. Safe flavor; it’s not weird or offensive. Lots of different flavors and textures.
Cons: Safe flavor; not as exciting as exclusive flavors at Walmart and Target. Almond slivers are almond bits. Fudge flakes seem to be in EVERYTHING.

Many people know Ben & Jerry’s for their clever flavor names. Take a commonly used phrase, change a word or syllable into an ingredient’s name, and BAM, a new ice cream flavor name is born.

Empower MINT.

Clusterfluff.

Cake My Day.

Americone Dream.

Karamel Sutra Core.

Oh, I could spend all day listing them and confusing my computer’s spell check.

But the brand has done it again with Oats of this Swirled Ice Cream. So is this ice cream out of this world? Let’s find oat.

The flavor features buttery brown sugar ice cream with fudge flakes and oatmeal cinnamon cookie swirls.

The ice cream base has a mild buttery flavor, but it was hard to taste the butteriness by itself because it seemed like cinnamon permeated through the ice cream. That reads like a complaint, but I assure you it’s not. Cinnamon and butter is a combination I love seeing together, like Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I would buy the ice cream base without anything else, if Ben & Jerry’s sold it.

While the ice cream itself is great, what makes this flavor wonderful is the oatmeal cinnamon cookie swirls. It has a fine gritty texture that’s a pleasant contrast to the creamy ice cream. However, its flavor makes me think more of a snickerdoodle than an oatmeal cinnamon cookie. Again, that reads like a complaint, but I assure you it’s not because I love this swirl. But if you can taste the oats, let me know because I don’t taste or see them.

Of course, seeing oats is a good thing and a bad thing. I don’t want to see the oats because that’ll mean dealing with the chewy texture of the oats, but at the same time seeing them will help justify in my mind that maybe I’m getting some benefit from eating ice cream with half my daily saturated fat in one serving.

As for the fudge flakes, their snap added a third texture to the ice cream and there were a lot of them. When I got a spoonful with the buttery ice cream base, cinnamon swirl, and the fudge, I thought it tasted more like a spiceless Mexican hot chocolate than any cookie. Once again, that reads like a complaint, but I assure you it’s not because this pint is wonderful and really hard to put down.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 310 calories, 180 calories from fat, 20 grams of fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 70 milligrams of cholesterol, 110 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 28 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Ice cream base and swirl taste more like a snickerdoodle than cinnamon oatmeal cookie. All three parts taste more like a spiceless Mexican hot chocolate. Clever name. Hard flavor to put down.
Cons: Don’t get the oats. Doesn’t bring an cinnamon oatmeal cookie to mind. Having to teach my computer’s spell check Ben & Jerry’s flavor names.

Despite having bourbon in its name, there’s no alcohol in Ben & Jerry’s Urban Bourbon Ice Cream. That’s a good thing because if it did and parents unknowingly fed their children the ice cream, I imagine some of the kids will become emotional drunks and start shouting things like “Why don’t you love me, dad?” or “I love you, Dora the Explorer!”

Some of you might think not having alcohol in Urban Bourbon takes the fun out of the flavor, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had. The new Ben & Jerry’s concoction has burnt caramel ice cream with almonds, fudge flakes, and bourbon caramel swirls.

See. Fun.

The bourbon caramel swirl was the best part of the pint and I enjoyed it so much that, even though I don’t drink, I’d drink it if it had alcohol. Now I’m not writing this to make me sound sophisticated, but I thought the bourbon had a nice woodsy flavor and it paired marvelously with the gooey caramel. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must tend to my collection of exotic birds.

Speaking of great pairings, the swirl goes well with the burnt caramel ice cream. Although, I have to admit I’m not sure I taste the ice cream’s burntness. Instead it had a normal caramel flavor that’s almost too mild. Although that’s good because if it had a strong caramel flavor, it combined with the caramel in the swirl would’ve overwhelmed the bourbon flavor.

The almond slivers added nothing flavor-wise. They had a coconut-like texture, which was kind of a turnoff for me. But, fortunately, my pint didn’t have a lot of them. However, there were A LOT of fudge flakes. Perhaps too many. At first, they were fine. But at a point I felt they got between me and my favorite ingredient. In the end, I shoving them to the side just so I could be alone with the not-burnt caramel ice cream and swirl.

While I mostly enjoyed the ice cream, I could understand how the bourbon caramel swirl’s slight astringent taste might turn off some. If that happens, I’ll gladly take yours from you because my pint didn’t have enough of them. This made me as angry as a bar patron who got cut off by the bartender because they’re so drunk that they’re yelling things like “Why don’t you love me, dad?”

Of course, your pints may vary. But if it doesn’t, feel free to yell, “Why don’t you love me, Ben & Jerry’s?”

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup – 300 calories, 150 calories from fat, 17 grams of fat, 9 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 70 milligrams of sodium, 33 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 27 grams of sugar, and 5 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: 1 pint
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: The bourbon caramel swirl. The combination of burnt caramel ice cream and bourbon caramel swirl. The mild flavor of the ice cream not getting in the way of the swirl. Using “woodsy” in a review. Dora the Explorer.
Cons: Don’t taste the burnt part of the burnt caramel ice cream. My pint didn’t have a lot of the swirl (your pint may vary). Perhaps too many fudge flakes in my pint. Children accidentally consuming alcohol. Super loud super drunks.