BEHIND THE FLAVOR

Klondike Milk Chocolate & Vanilla Ice Cream

Getting a great license is one thing. Getting the flavor to be great is another.

When you're developing a licensed flavored coffee, you're not simply trying to make something that tastes good. You're trying to make something that tastes enough like the original product that the people who know that product better than anyone else will recognize it.

That's what made Klondike interesting.

We weren't trying to just put Klondike into a coffee pod. We were trying to figure out what makes a Klondike taste like a Klondike when the thing you're tasting is coffee.

That meant starting with the flavor itself and working backward.

Chocolate was an obvious part of the answer, but chocolate isn't one thing. Coffee already brings its own chocolate and cocoa notes to the cup, and if you let the chocolate get too far out in front, the profile starts moving in the wrong direction. We wanted milk chocolate, not a darker chocolate profile.

So we increased the vanilla.

That did two things at once. It pushed the chocolate toward the softer, creamier character of milk chocolate, while also making the vanilla more prominent. The vanilla finishes at the end of the sip, which was important because that's part of what makes the profile feel like ice cream rather than simply chocolate coffee.

There was another detail we had to account for. Ice cream has a subtle tang that most people probably wouldn't describe as sour when they're eating it. But take that characteristic away and something feels missing. You may not know exactly what you're looking for, but your brain knows the flavor isn't quite right.

That is the kind of attention to detail that matters when you're trying to recreate a familiar flavor in an entirely different format.

We went through three different formulations, each at three concentrations. Nine different versions of Klondike Milk Chocolate & Vanilla Ice Cream flavored coffee.

By the time we sent the samples to the Klondike team, we had already done a lot of the work. They approved the first version they tasted.

That isn't always the case, so it was incredibly validating. When it comes to the team responsible for the Klondike brand, you can't fake it. The flavor profile has to be spot on. They know that flavor better than we ever could, and getting their approval was more than just a great licensing collaboration. It was confirmation that our process had done what we set out to do.

Obviously, nobody can predict commercial success from a flavor approval. There is a long road between someone saying, "Yes, that tastes like Klondike," and customers deciding they want to drink it.

But sitting in that tasting room, knowing that the people responsible for one of the most recognizable ice cream brands in America had tasted what we created and said yes, was pretty satisfying. This is going to be a good one. 

 

Development Notes

• Klondike Milk Chocolate & Vanilla Ice Cream required the flavor profile to be recognizable as Klondike while still functioning as a brewed coffee.
• Coffee's natural chocolate and cocoa notes meant the chocolate component had to be carefully controlled.
• Increasing vanilla shifted the chocolate toward a softer milk chocolate character while creating a distinct vanilla finish.
• A subtle tang was important to the overall ice cream character, even though it is not typically perceived as a distinct "sour" flavor.
• Three formulations were evaluated at three concentrations, for nine total versions.
• The first version sent to the Klondike team was approved.

 

 

MISSION STATUS: Flavor Profile Expertly Matched 
Flavors Released: 12 / 52
Ice Cream Truck Season 2: 4 of 9 weeks
Mondays Missed: 0
World Record Status: 1/4 finished