The Quest For The Biggy Iggy! (Part Two)

Happy Labor Day, rebels. In the first part, I found out not only are Biggy Iggy and Chewy Louie still around, they’re at Richmond Market of Richmond, Vermont.

(Click here to jump to the recommended song, "The Swag" by Link Wray and his Ray Men!)

Happy Labor Day, rebels. In the first part, I found out not only are Biggy Iggy and Chewy Louie still around, they’re at Richmond Market of Richmond, Vermont.

And that using Google instead of DuckDuckGo and just letting the store’s website load would have gotten me that information much faster.

The Biggy Iggy is a whopping seven ounce, 530 calorie ice cream sandwich that brags about its “premium vanilla ice cream” between two chocolate-chip cookies that stay chewy right out of the freezer.

They also get a lot of hype by the people who have had them before. According to the Flash Microsite, one convenience store cashier said “Biggy Iggies sell like flapjacks on a cold morning in Wisconsin.” The people of Massachusetts missed them when they mysteriously disappeared from store shelves. Posts on Facebook indicate people were willing to go to Vermont just for this frozen treat, like an obscure Ben & Jerry's.

Do these ice cream sandwiches deserve their cult following? Was it a good idea to physically go to Vermont instead of just ordering them online like a quitter? How am I going to eat a near half-pound ice cream sandwich?!

It’s finally time to find out.

THE TASTE

We picked up two Biggy Iggys at a convenience store before even touching Richmond Market. I knew they were in some convenience stores, but I assumed wherever we went wasn’t likely to have them. I couldn’t believe I was really holding these in my own two hands.

Target acquired.

The most striking feature of the Biggy Iggy is just how much ice cream is on this thing. It makes up most of the volume of the sandwich.

Biting into it, I was immediately reminded of cookie dough.  The chocolate chips are pretty small, which disappointed me at first, but there turned out to be enough “pockets of crunch” for my liking.

The ice cream was standard. Foodmark calls it “premium”, which is a stretch, but not a total lie. It’s got some of that buttery flavor that indicates it is, in fact, made from cream. I did see "butter flavoring" on the ingredients list, but that was for the cookie, not the ice cream.

As for the Chewy Louie, the cookies are slightly thicker and puffier. And by cookies, I mean brownies. It’s literally an ice cream sandwich, but with brownies. They're dense and chewy, with satisfying chocolateyness.

At first I thought it should've had chocolate ice cream, because vanilla would make it too similar to the Biggy Iggy. Boy was I wrong. Actually tasting it, I realized the chocolate-vanilla balance in this weird little dude's universe was already satisfied. Using chocolate ice cream would've been too much.

And yes, I do believe in such a thing as too much chocolate. It's like using too many swear words- sometimes you need that flavor, but too much and it feels forced. Plus your audience thinks that's all you have to offer.

REFLECTION

The Biggy Iggy's main selling point is that it's soft straight out of the freezer, yet never mushy.

I’ve gotta admit, every ice cream sandwich I’ve had (except the homemade kind) was soft enough. They even border on cakey. But the Biggy Iggy doesn't stick to your fingers, and the cookies aren't thin, vaguely-flavored wafers that get lost in the ice cream.

Not that it matters, but these are also made with a lot of typical ice cream ingredients. They’re not fancy or artisan. There’s not much making them “rebellious” besides the weird artwork, unconventional name scheme and small food distributor. If this was just a Chipwich, I would have ignored it. Which you know already since I ignored Chipwiches until just now.

I personally prefer the Chewy Louie. It's more indulgent, and the flavor of the brownie (let's be honest, brownie) overpowers the ice cream instead of the other way around. The chocolate flavor infuses into the vanilla ice cream as all that sweet, gooey goodness melts in your mouth. I can see myself ordering these for a party.

Also, if you're still in suspense about how I ate these big honkin' things?

I cut them in half. I ate the "smaller halves" and gave the rest to my brother.

I feel the need to say I'm not trying to moralize my eating habits- I give you my full permission to eat as many of these as you can handle. It's just that I like to be conscious of my own choices. I mean, 530 calories is an entire meal for me.

Was the Vermont trip worth it? Boy, was it ever.

Though I must credit my mom and happy accidents for making it so.

You see, I wanted this to be a day trip where we drove up to Richmond Market, bought a whole bunch of ice cream sandwiches (and other things we can't get in our state), and gone back home. That probably would've taken 10 hours and been super exhausting.

Instead, my mom wanted to use this as an excuse to stay at a Harvest Host. We planned on staying at two, but ended up staying at one on Saturday and going to a campground on Sunday. The campground had karaoke on Sunday, and man did we light it up. I sang Elvis, my parents did some old pop songs (their rendition of Love Shack was a hit), and my brother even crooned out At Last and Blue Moon.

And of course we had some great sandwiches for breakfast at Cold Hollow Cider Mill. It's apparently a fan favorite in the state.

I'll leave you off with an old rockabilly tune I think suits Biggy Iggy's personality: The Swag by Link Wray and his Ray Men. I'd had this song in mind ever since I called the ice cream sandwiches "the swag" in Part One.

Stay sexy!