Salt & Straw's Fall Ice Cream Series Includes A Festive New Pumpkin Spice Flavor

Though it is decidedly still summer, fall looms on the horizon, a flannel and denim cloud perfumed with pumpkin spice. While some will mourn the passing warmth and unfettered looseness of summer, others embrace the hygge of fall in décor, fashion, and flavors. Salt & Straw sure has. In a press release sent to Tasting Table, the gourmet ice cream maker has announced their upcoming seasonal ice cream series, a lineup redolent of all of the comforting ingredients and tastes that may make you want to jump in a pile of leaves.

Available throughout September, "The Harvest Festival" series features old favorites alongside a new flavor that is sure to get fans excited for autumn. The inspiration, says Salt & Straw, comes from its earliest days in Portland and the local fall festivals the company took part in.

The newest flavor is Pumpkin Spiced Tiramisu featuring coffee ice cream with maple syrup, classic fall spices, a tiramisu swirl, coffee mascarpone, and coffee stracciatella. It is joined by another ice cream called Beecher's Cheese with Apple Pie Cinnamon Rolls. For something less creamy, the Caramel Apple Sherbet is an apple juice sherbet with vanilla-infused caramel ribbons. Pinot Poached Pear Sherbet is made with pickled pears "bathed in a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir" and blended into vanilla ice cream. Finally, Chocolate Plum & Hazelnut Shortbread has pieces of hazelnut shortbread with dark chocolate chips, coconut cream, and plum marmalade.

If you're at all familiar with Salt & Straw then you know that the company is committed to using only the highest quality ingredients, sourced from both Pacific Northwest and national purveyors. "The Harvest Festival" series is no exception and reflects the "bounty of the autumn produce" and a "collaboration with beloved artisan partners," per the press release.

Probably the most bold of the new flavors, the Beecher's Cheese with Apple Pie Cinnamon Rolls features ice cream made with Beecher's Flagship Cheese. As the name implies, this is the Seattle-founded cheese maker's signature variety. It is nutty, crumbly, and a perfect pairing for sweet flavors and creamy textures. Similarly local, the crisp apples used in the Caramel Apple Sherbet hail from Treetop, a farm collective located in Selah, Washington. Oregon is also a major wine-producing state, as evidenced by the Sokol Blosser Pinot Noir used to simmer the pears in the Pinot Poached Pear Sherbet.

Though all of "The Harvest Festival" ice creams are intended to be delicious in isolation, where is the fun in that? Luckily, September is packed with plenty of major holidays and some that are less well-known, but nonetheless delicious. To wit, September 22 is National Ice Cream Cone Day, a fabulous opportunity to sample not just a flavor from "The Harvest Festival" series, but to try it served in one of Salt & Straw's handmade waffle cones, because fall is all about those creature comforts.