The first thing that pops into my mind when I hear mint chocolate chip is ice cream. A fun fact – mint chocolate chip ice cream was invented in 1973 by culinary student Marilyn Ricketts while studying at South Devon College in England. She entered a competition to provide an ice cream dessert for Princess Anne’s wedding to Captain Mark Phillips at Westminster Abby. The desert was originally named Mint Royale.
Marilyn got a silver cup for her efforts, and we got our first taste of one of the most popular ice cream flavors.
Now, we don’t normally think of mint chocolate chip cookies, but there is a precedent for it. Know what the most popular Girl Scout cookie is? You guessed it, Thin Mints. They debuted in 1959 but weren’t actually the first mint chocolate cookie the Girl Scouts sold. That distinction goes to Cooky-Mints, in 1939.
The new mint chocolate chip cookie flavor we’ve created at McCormick hits all the right flavors for me. It starts out as mint, but then with the sequential flavor release, you get the chocolate. The chocolate chip cookie part comes later towards the end of the flavor.
We can do this type of flavor release thanks to our proprietary Flavor Cell® technology. We can encapsulate the flavor and basically program the timing of flavor release, so you taste a certain flavor exactly when we want you to taste it.
The flavor first came about when we were creating flavors for coffee. In the beginning, it started out as just mint chocolate, but then we decided to add a cookie note for complexity.
From coffee, we moved on to testing it out in other beverages – namely alcohols like vodka, rum, and whisky. Rather surprisingly, it tasted good in all of them. The complexity of the flavor still came through, even in these strong alcohols.
An obvious application for it is ice cream. I don’t know anyone who would say no to a double-scoop cone of mint chocolate chip.
It would also taste good in a smoothie. I think it would add a nice twist to hot chocolate. It would work well in a baked good like a brownie. It’s really a flavor profile that can deliver well in a wide range of different bases.
But if I had to choose my preference out of all the applications, I would love to see and taste it in either a smoothie or an ice cream – or a milkshake!
Wow, for me, I’d have to say its complexity. With this flavor creation, you get every part of the flavor. It delivers it in almost these three perfect sections. First comes the mint, then you’re hit with the chocolate, and last, you get that nice cookie finish. You get every component sequentially.
It’s kind of like that gum Violet eats in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. She gets a three-course meal, with the flavor completely separated, ending with blueberry pie. Then she turns into a blueberry, right?
