STUNNED BY THE sunshine, the population of Ireland have this week – almost as one – turned to ice cream.
Here at DailyEdge.ie, we know what matters. So today we have painstakingly ranked all the varieties of Irish ice cream.* From worst to best.
This ranking is final and definitive.
* By ‘Irish ice cream’, we mean ice cream available in Ireland. By ‘all’, we mean ‘some of the main ones’.
14. Wibbly Wobbly Wonder
A cruel exercise in cognitive dissonance, masquerading as a refreshing snack. I wouldn’t put damp sand in your roast dinner and ask you to eat it, so why put jelly in an ice pop?
Word has it that the victims in the latest Saw movie are force-fed these.
13. Giant Bar
Lifted one place above the ‘worst’ slot only because it has no pretensions whatsoever. But still, the feeling of your mum saying “I got ice creams!” and then pulling a battered box of these out of the Tesco bag is possibly worse than death.
12. Brunch
OK, so maybe these were a brand unluckily overtaken by the Celtic Tiger. But still, would you really make a pink ice cream and then name it after a meal consisting primarily of rashers?
No, you wouldn’t.
11. Solero
The ultimate ‘notions’ ice cream. OK, they taste good, but seriously? You’re a sunburnt person in a park, not a friggin’ Oxendales catalogue. Get over yourself and buy a Super Split.
10. Calippo
The ‘samurai booby trap’ of ice creams. Nearly impossible to eat without getting all down your front. And that’s after you’ve fired the thing directly into your face while trying to squeeze it out of the cardboard.
However, it is lifted from frozen obscurity by the cold melty liquid that’s left at the end – a sugar hit so pure and invigorating that as-yet-undiscovered tribes do shots of it before going into battle.
9. Cornetto
On the one hand, this is the faintly lame ice cream your mammy would buy when she’s ‘treating herself’. On the other – we’re all our mammy’s children, aren’t we?
8. Super Split
Frankly, the combination of orange juice and milk is one that should not be mentioned in polite company. However the Super Split makes a valiant effort to combine them, and God loves a trier.
The kind of ice cream you’d never buy for yourself, but you’d still be sort of pleased if someone else bought you one.
7. Feast
Frankly, whoever had the idea of putting a solid bar of chocolate in the middle of an ice cream should be handed the freedom of Ireland and… I dunno, a free campervan or something.
However, it slips down the rankings a little because the chocolate in question tastes like it was made in 1950 by a factory operating under strict wartime rationing regulations. You win some, you lose some.
6. Mars
They said it would never work. They said it couldn’t be done. But WHO’S LAUGHING NOW?
A rare innovator in the ice-cream field, the Mars – along with all those that followed it – deserves credit for changing the game. But it’s still not really in the ice cream gang. When they have ice cream get-togethers, it dances awkwardly and leaves at 10pm “because it’s just really tired”.
5. Ice Berger
The Ice Berger may look simple – bland, even. But behind that faintly unappetising facade lies a delicately-balanced combination of ice cream and biscuit that flashier confections can only envy.
Also, if there was a Nobel prize for ice cream names, the Ice Berger would win it every single year. At this stage, everyone else would have just stopped entering.
4. Mr Freeze
OK, so they’re impossible to open and slice your mouth to shreds. But who said ice-cold delicious refreshment was ever going to be easy?
Simple, delicious, AND they turn your mouth weird colours. A classic.
3. Magnum
The ‘fancy underwear’ of ice creams. Why? Because they’re undersized, overpackaged and extravagantly priced – but boy, do you feel classy as hell when you get into them.
2. Loop the Loop
An underrated classic of the Irish ice cream market. I know, it seems like an ice cream for kids. But do me a favour and just try it.
Done?
Now tell me that isn’t one HELL of a grown-up ice cream, right there. Go on. Say it to my face.
1. Tangle Twister
King of ice creams. The masterstroke of including pear – an almost unheard-of flavour in the ice cream world – would almost have been enough for greatness. But then to combine it with vanilla ice cream and… pink stuff… in a towering twist of sunny-day ecstasy? It’s breathtaking.
The Tangle Twister is so good that its name is actually just Twister, but everyone adds another word onto it, just out of respect. True story.
