Leah and I love ice cream on a hot summer afternoon, especially after a big calorie-burn day in the mountains. I had a few of those recently and decided to try Molly Moon’s ice cream flight to treat myself. Molly Moon’s is a beloved local brand with a great founder story and excellent business practices.

For only $15 (as of June 2024), you can try all of their flavors. It’s best to split this one with a friend because the portions are pretty generous. I have to imagine this is a loss leader for the brand. If so, it’s pretty effective. I ended up trying new flavors that will keep me coming back for sure. It gets even cheaper if you get a Molly Moon’s gift card from Costco.

On a scale of 0-5 (in 0.5 increments), here’s how Leah and I ranked all the flavors at Molly Moon’s. Four of the flavors are seasonal.

Scoring for June 2024

Cookies and cream

Raja: 5.0 - “very chunky, excellent bite to every scoop”

Leah: 3.5

Strawberry - organic strawberries from Viva Farms (farm incubator in Skagit Valley), swirls and chunks plus vanilla extract

Raja: 4.5 - “it’s very obvious they were using good strawberries here”

Leah: 4.0

Melted chocolate - instead of cocoa powder, they use 70% dark, organic, direct trade K'UL chocolate; melted using a hot mix of cream, milk and sugar to get a dense, extra fudgy chocolate

Raja: 4.5 - “somehow this actually tastes like melted chocolate, the execution on this is brilliant”

Leah: 4.0

Sweet cream

Raja: 4.5 - “this is such a clean cream flavor”

Leah: 3.0

Cookie dough - based on Hillary Clinton's cookie recipe, notes of cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar; filled with cookie dough chunks made w/ rolled oats and chocolate pieces

Raja: 4.5 - "another chunky one, nice”

Leah: 3.0

Honey lavender - locally harvested wild honey, bits of organic lavender from Sequim

Raja: 4.0 - “very fragrant, nothing artificial about this”

Leah: 4.0

Salted caramel - saltier than you’d expect

Raja: 3.5 “intentionally super salty, an acquired taste”

Leah: 0.0

Yeti - made with sweet cream ice cream swirled w/ vanilla bean caramel, granola (pepitas, pepitas butter, flax seeds, oats, honey, salt), and Theo chocolate.

Raja: 3.0 “extremely textured, a lot going on here”

Leah: 1.0

Mocha chip

Raja: 3.0 “this was nice”

Leah: 1.0

Coconut chunk, vegan - speckled with toasted shredded coconut, chunks of bitter-sweet K'UL dark chocolate

Raja: 2.5 “this’d be better if it was creamier”

Leah: 3.0

Scout mint - chocolate gluten-free brownies cut into bite-sized chunks, then folded into minty ice cream

Raja: 0.0 “mint and chocolate don’t go together, reminds me of toothpaste”

Leah: 3.5

Blueberry pie [SEASONAL June 2024] - Swirls of blueberry jam (Viva Farms), buttery pie crust in sweet cream ice cream

Raja: 5.0 “they nailed this one, tastes like leftover blueberry pie right out of the fridge”

Leah: 3.0

Orange creamsicle [SEASONAL June 2024] - freshly juiced and zested organic oranges blended with rich cream and milk

Raja: 4.0 “I liked it”

Leah: 1.0

Strawberry rhubarb sorbet, vegan [SEASONAL June 2024] - strawberries from Viva Farms blended w/ rhubarb from Sidhu Farms

Raja: 3.0 “I wouldn’t be upset if someone gave me this”

Leah: 4.0

Matcha strawberry [SEASONAL June 2024] - matcha from Sugimoto Tea swirled w/ Viva Farms strawberry jam

Raja: 2.0 “that matcha flavor has some funk to it that I don’t like”

Leah: 2.0

Observations

• I enjoyed and would repeat anything I scored a 3.0 and higher.

• Leah was much more critical than I was. She had an average score of 2.6 while I had an average score of 3.5.

• I’d be interested to see how I’d rank these all if I were to take this tasting in a few months.

I’d love to do this test with another ice cream shop like Salt & Straw or a retailer like Van Leeuwen, but it’d be really expensive unless I could get a group of like-minded enthusiasts for that.