Icecream Journal

March means spring and warmer weather approaching, but it also means the start of Turkey Hill’s annual Ultimate Flavor Tournament held right here on the Ice Cream Journal starting next Monday.

The Ultimate Flavor Tournament is a weekly contest that pits one ice cream flavor against another and your votes will determine the winner. The first week (starting on Monday) will feature 16 match-ups (32 total flavors). The 16 winners will face off the next week, which will be whittled down to eight flavors the week after and so on. The contest will culminate in the middle of April with two flavors going head-to-head for the title of Turkey Hill’s Ultimate Flavor.

In 2008, Vanilla Bean swept through the tournament with ease to win the title, but was stopped in the final round the next year by our 2009 champ, Light Recipe Moose Tracks. Both former champs are sitting out this year to give other flavors a chance at the title (we’ll stop short of saying that the previous winners are serving as “coaches” this year because that would be taking the sports theme a little too far).  Who will reign supreme as 2010’s Ultimate Flavor? Your votes will help to answer those questions and your comments could land you some sweet prizes. More on that in Monday’s blog entry!

The Ultimate Flavor Tournament is designed to determine the best Turkey Hill ice cream flavor as determined by your votes. Each week we’ll narrow down the field until just one flavor is left standing. We’ll also choose 10 comments at random from all the comments left during the six week showdown and each commenter will receive a one month supply of Turkey Hill ice cream and we’ll choose one lucky comment to receive a ONE YEAR supply of ice cream.

This is it. The last big fight before the final showdown. We started with 32 flavors and now, only four remain. Which two will move on the final round? We asked Ernie that question, and here’s what he had to say about this week’s match-ups:

MATCH-UP #1 – Vanilla Bean vs. Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup
“It’s a rematch of last year’s final showdown! Vanilla won that battle, but there are a lot of Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup fans out there who have been waiting patiently for rematch, and now they have it. Vanilla actually looked somewhat vulnerable during last week’s battle against Dutch Chocolate, so this match-up should be close.”

MATCH-UP #2 – Tastykake Peanut Butter Kandy Kake vs. Light Recipe Moose Tracks
“Here’s the exciting thing: One of these two flavors will be advancing to the final round. No one would have predicted at the beginning of this tournament that either one of these guys would have made it this far, but they did! I’m going to predict a narrow win – probably the narrowest of the entire tournament so far – by Moose Tracks in this one, but I know a lot of Tastykake fans who might disagree.”

The Ultimate Flavor Tournament is designed to determine the best Turkey Hill ice cream flavor as determined by your votes. Each week we’ll narrow down the field until just one flavor is left standing. We’ll also choose 10 comments at random from all the comments left during the six week showdown and each commenter will receive a one month supply of Turkey Hill ice cream and we’ll choose one lucky comment to receive a ONE YEAR supply of ice cream.

We’ve reached the halfway mark of this year’s Ultimate Flavor Tournament and just eight of the original 32 flavors remain. As expected, some flavors have shown their dominance in the early rounds to make it to the Edible Eight (Vanilla Bean and Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup appear headed to another finals showdown), but a few flavors – like Caramel Cone Chaos and Junior Mint – have surprised everyone by beating some tough competition to make it this far.

Once again, we turn to the Ice Cream Professor himself, our very own Ernie, for an analysis of this week’s four heavyweight match-ups.

MATCH-UP #1 – Dynamic Duos Caramel Cone Chaos vs. Tastykake Peanut Butter Kandy Kake
“Look out everyone, DD Triple C means business! No one would have predicted the Caramel Wonder would have made it this far in the tournament, but here he is and Kandy Kake is going to have a real fight on its hands. This one will be close.”

MATCH-UP #2 – Vanilla Bean vs. Dutch Chocolate
“Talk about a classic showdown! These two faced off early in the tournament last year and vanilla won 1,108 votes to 823 votes. But Dutch Chocolate has been training hard in the off-season and is more than ready for a rematch. I think this might be Chocolate’s year!”

MATCH-UP #3 – Limited Edition Junior Mint vs. Light Recipe Moose Tracks
“Moose Tracks is the last Light Recipe flavor standing in the tournament and, to be honest, I think they’ll win this round and advance to the Frosty Four. But don’t rule out a last minute comeback by Junior Mint. That’s one flavor that doesn’t like to lose!”

MATCH-UP #4 – Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup vs. All Natural Mint Chocolate Chip
“So far in the tournament, both of these flavors have won their match-ups by considerable margins. That means we’re in for a fight, which means I’m going to stay out of this one and let the chips (and cups) fall where they may.”

The Ultimate Flavor Tournament is designed to determine the best Turkey Hill ice cream flavor as determined by your votes. Each week we’ll narrow down the field until just one flavor is left standing. We’ll also choose 10 comments at random from all the comments left during the six week showdown and each commenter will receive a one month supply of Turkey Hill ice cream and we’ll choose one lucky comment to receive a ONE YEAR supply of ice cream.

Round one of the Ultimate Flavor Tournament is in the books and after more than 40,000 votes, the 32 starting flavors have been narrowed down to the Sweet Sixteen. There were definitely some close battles last week, but there were also some blow outs, as in the case of Vanilla Bean easily defeating its Cookies n’ Cream challenger by a 2-to-1 margin.

To break down the action, we turned to our own Einstein of Ice Cream, Ernie, for his opinion on this week’s match-ups.

MATCH-UP #1 – All Natural Mint Chocolate Chip vs. Root Beer Duetto
“Mint Chocolate Chip is probably the most overlooked performer in this contest. It’s a really popular flavor and I expect it to put up a fight deep into this tournament. Look for a win for Mint in this match-up and another great battle next week.”

MATCH-UP #2 – Light Recipe Extreme Cookies n Cream vs. Dynamic Duos Caramel Cone Chaos
“Caramel Cone Chaos is the youngest flavor remaining in the tournament, but I don’t think Triple C has the experience necessary to take down the “Extreme Dream” in this round.”

MATCH-UP #3 – Vanilla Bean vs. Raspberry Duetto
“Okay, I just feel sorry for Raspberry Duetto this week. I mean, it fought hard in the first round and beat Cherry Duetto. Cherry! That’s not an easy flavor to beat. And then it has to face the reigning Ultimate Flavor Tournament champ in round two? That’s harsh.”

MATCH-UP #4 – Peppermint Stick vs, Limited Edition Junior Mint
“It’s the battle of the mints! I’m actually stumped on this one. It could go either way. I’ll flip a coin. And the winner is…wait, where’d my coin go? Oh well, may the best mint win!”

MATCH-UP #5 – Light Recipe Moose Tracks vs. Limited Edition Gertrude Hawk Box of Chocolates
“The Moose is loose and it’s not going to let a box of chocolates get in its way! (Even one as delicious as Gertrude Hawk’s.) I predict we’ll be following this set of tracks deep into this tournament.”

MATCH-UP #6 – Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup vs. Eagles Touchdown Sundae
“Okay, now we’re separating the contenders from the pretenders. These are two powerhouse flavors with something to prove and nothing to lose. Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup finished second in last year’s tournament. Could we see an early round upset by the Eagles? Maybe.”

MATCH-UP #7 – Dutch Chocolate vs. Light Recipe Banana Split
“Author Michael Levine once wrote, ‘Chemically speaking, chocolate really is the world’s perfect food.’ What Michael meant to say was, Dutch Chocolate will win this match-up easily.”

MATCH-UP #8 – Tastykake Peanut Butter Kandy Kake vs. Orange Cream Swirl Frozen Yogurt
“Both of these flavors are a lot fun, so I know that no matter who wins, we’ll have some excitement in the next round. The only question is, how long can a frozen yogurt flavor compete in a tournament dominated by ice cream heavyweights?”