Holiday Gift Guide 2019: The Best New Ice Cream Flavors

Winter may have arrived, but it’s never too cold for ice cream. Many of our favorite artisan producers are shipping nationally so you can have pints delivered straight to your doorstep. Here are some intriguing and delicious new flavors to try. 

Clementine’s Creamery Tequila Chocolate Mole

At Clementine’s Creamery, founder Tamara Keefe makes “naughty” and “nice” ice cream flavors. The naughty flavors are boozy ice creams so strong – up to 18% of the recipe – that customers are carded when ordering these at the scoop shop. Tequila chocolate mole ($15) is infused with El Mayor’s añejo tequila and the dark chocolate base is blended with a complex mole sauce that carries a subtle heat on the finish. 

Van Leeuwen Oat Milk Ice Creams

Van Leeuwen just opened a new flagship scoop shop at Rockefeller Center this fall and the newest addition to their menu is a line of oat milk vegan ice cream ($89 for six pints), capitalizing on the trendiest non-dairy milk alternative. There’s caramel cookie, mocha latte, brown sugar chunk, strawberry, dark chocolate peanut butter swirl, brownie sundae raspberry swirl and chocolate cookie dough chunk with pieces of honeycomb candy. “This line is for everyone, vegan or not, nut-free or otherwise,” says co-founder and CEO Ben Van Leeuwen.

Salt & Straw Sugar Plum Fairy

Each month, Salt & Straw unveils new monthly flavors across their West Coast locations, and they’ll be opening two new stores in Miami next year too. For December, new holiday flavors ($65 for five pints) include cinnamon chai spiced eggnog, gingerbread cookie dough and our favorite sugar plum fairy. The Nutcracker-inspired flavor begins with Assam tea-infused ice cream swirled with sweet plum jam and marzipan. The unexpected flavor combination is as enchanting and delightful as the Tchaikovsky ballet.

Ample Hills Creamery Maple Bourbon Barrel

Can a frozen dessert warm you up? The warm, caramel notes and light boozy flavor in the new Maple Bourbon Pecan Brittle ($55 for four pints) ice cream from Ample Hills Creamery seems to do just that, improbable as it may sound. Widow Jane Bourbon and Crown Maple Syrup aged in bourbon barrels create a powerfully smooth base with chocolate-coated candied pecans generously sprinkled in for crunch.

Humphry Slocombe Wine & Cheese 

As a unique holiday special only available through the end of December, San Francisco-based Humphry Slocombe partners with Napa’s Domaine Carneros and Sonoma’s Laura Chenel for a Wine & Cheese ice cream ($89 for the Holiday Cheers six-pack of pints) , swirling pinot noir sorbet with savory goat cheese ice cream. Savory, fruity, delicate and boozy, this is a sophisticated flavor for classy grown-ups.

Lick

Lick Honest Ice Creams has scoop shops in Austin and San Antonio, but you can order their pints for delivery ($99 for six pints) across the continental United States. This winter, a new spiced orange & cream flavor snakes ribbons of juicy housemade orange, pear and clove jam through vanilla ice cream. Both the oranges and pears are homegrown in Texas. “We intended the flavor to include a spiced wine poached pear jam,” says co-founder Anthony Sobotik. “But when we tasted a test batch, we fell in love with the pronounced orange and clove flavor. We decided to forget about the wine and dive all in with the orange and clove!”

High Point Creamery

Perennial holiday favorite dark chocolate orange with marshmallows is making a comeback this year at High Point Creamery, but the new babka in olive oil flavor ($7.99) might just steal the show. The flavor was created for a Hanukkah fundraiser that the Denver-based creamery is doing for their local Jewish Community Center, inspired by the popular Jewish cake and the tradition of lighting the menorah with olive oil. 

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Pumpkin Cake Roll

Pumpkin spice fans will marvel at the intense pumpkin flavor here (made with buttercup pumpkins grown exclusively for Jeni’s in Ohio) without the syrupy sweetness in Jeni’s pumpkin cake roll ice cream ($12). Chinese five-spice blend and brown sugar balance savory and sweet, and the pumpkin ice cream mixed with sweet cream cheese ice cream is studded with soft chunks of vanilla-spiced cake.

Coolhaus Brown Butter Gingerbread Cookie

A nutty, buttery brown sugar base is mixed with crumbled gingerbread cookies for this new holiday flavor. The Coolhaus team was inspired by a Portlandia episode that makes mention of gender-neutral gingerbread people. Find this flavor in Whole Foods nationwide or mix and match six pints online for $72.