Bobtail Year: Goat?

Photo copyrights are not mine. Will take down upon request.
L-to-R: "Wildman" Steve Brill, Murray's Cheese and Beyond Reason.

May is month twelve of my Bobtail Year, two pints of Bobtail Homemade Ice Cream a month for donating to Oracle Theatre.

• • • 

When I walk into Bobtail, I see they have a flavor named after a certain bearded, Taylor Swift back-up singer with rectangular pupils, a horned barnyardigan whose fuzzy figure doesn't seem like appetizing inspiration for a dessert.

"Tell me about the Goat, please."
"You have to say it, 'Goat?' Haha!"
"I'd like to try the Goat? please."

My scoop-stress, who having been tasked to name the flavor assigned it its inquisitive moniker, dunked her arm into the freezer. The sample spoon dipped into the prettiest bucket of ice cream in all the freezer. Could it be?

"Tell me about the Goat?"
"Goat? is a vanilla goat cheese ice cream with blackberries and goat cheese crumbles."

It was! I'd known it on sight: Just as blackberries stain one's fingers, it turns an ice cream base a delicate white and purple. Blackberry ice cream is perhaps the finest of all fruit ice cream, its tartness blending with cream and vanilla into the sweetest three-part harmony known to man. Adding a new voice to the mix, goat cheese? My oral cavity ached for this trio-turned-quartet's appetizing acoustics.

I let the echo of the sample bite reverberate through my being. Having just tasted vanilla goat cheese ice cream with blackberries and goat cheese crumble, it was clear that a change had taken place inside me. Part of me knew that nothing would ever be the--
"Well?" she asked. Clearly, I had lingered for longer than is normal.
"Well, I know I love it. The thing I'm wondering is how many pints I should get."
And I wish I'd gotten more.

Anyone who knows me and Bobtail will know this isn't Bobtail's first dance with goat cheese ice cream. This time around, vanilla is the principle flavor, one that is softened by the goat cheese and made tart by the blackberries. The goat cheese flavor isn't really in the foreground until one gets a bite with the goat cheese crumble mix-in, temporarily overtaking the silky vanilla-blackberry. The goat cheese crumbles are not overused, sneaking in every two or three bites. While the blackberry mix-in is less present than the goat cheese crumbles--just a few in my pint--their effect on the flavor as a whole is undeniable.

Without question, this was one of the best flavors of my Bobtail Year...but was it the best? This requires some thought. Next time: Bobtail Year in Review!