What Andrew Zimmern Really Thinks About Dolly Parton's New Ice Cream
Whether you're an avid supporter of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams (who isn't these days) or a mega Dolly Parton fan, you probably saw that the two paired up to make a special ice cream for the musician. Dolly Parton's very own flavor of Jeni's Ice Cream was designed to be a strawberry jam and pretzel-laced concoction with a hint of tangy cream cheese. Of course it came in a darling light pink package, too. But when the ice cream dropped in stores and online on April 8, there were far more people than there was ice cream.
As the original press release said, Jeni's only made 10,000 pints which were largely available online with some for sale in stores. However, fans flooded the Jeni's Ice Cream website with 50 times more traffic than normal, according to Eater. That crashed the website, of course, and only an elite few received one or two pints of the new flavor. Jeni's even took to social media to apologize for the rush writing, "Thank you for TRYING to buy our Dolly pints today. We realize this release was disappointing and we're so sorry it's been a frustrating experience." But apparently, Andrew Zimmern was among the lucky few who got through on the website (via Twitter).
Despite the site crash, Zimmern says the flavor didn't get enough hype
Andrew Zimmern snapped a photo of his coveted pint and posted it to both Twitter and Instagram. Tagging the brand and Dolly Parton, he wrote, "Amazing cream cheese ice cream with pretzel streusel and strawberry jam swirls. The hype was not enough for this one. For real. Still undefeated for me is the goat cheese ice cream with cherries. My fave." Considering 50 times the amount of people were on the website trying to get it, that's a lot of hype to live up to. So, if Zimmern said it surpassed that, it must be worth remaking and selling out over and over until everyone who wants it can try it.
According to Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream, the second wave, which included 5,000 pints of Dolly Parton's ice cream, went up for sale on April 15 and sold out again. The page also announced that it would make another batch of 15,000 pints which will be up for purchase in August. So, you might want to join the mailing list to make sure you don't miss out on the third wave. Hopefully, this flavor will eventually be a mainstay of the brand.