Rum Raisin

I had a friend who always said what an old man he was, and this was his favorite kind of ice cream. For me it occupies the same space as butter pecan, although I order rum raisin from time to time and I never like butter pecan. I think it's the booze-soaked raisins that keep it from being cloyingly sweet.

Because I'm pretty sure Eddie's doesn't use a basic vanilla as their base for this. It's sweeter than vanilla and doesn't have the vanilla flavor. Maybe it's a brown-sugar or caramel ice cream. Something richer, less fresh, than vanilla. Maybe it's simply those boozy raisins adding to the flavor just from sitting in the ice cream. You wouldn't think squishy little dried fruits would work, texture-wise, in ice cream, but they do. (Unless you ask my friend Julie, whose aversion to rum raisin is so strong that she wouldn't go with me to get it.)