The 13 Best Ice Cream Flavors Of Summer 2014

Summer is one of our favorite seasons by far, not only because it's hot and sunny and we get to go to the beach, but because we get to so much ice cream. You see, we take the arrival of summer as an unlimited license to eat all the ice cream we want, and we take our pursuit of ice cream very seriously.

Since every summer brings new flavors -- or at least previously undiscovered ones -- we see it as our duty to go out and try all the newbies. Last summer, flavors like Steve's Bklyn Blackout and Jeni's Juniper & Lemon Curd were pulling our heart strings. This summer, from a pool of over 50 contenders, we rounded up more ice cream from Steve's and Jeni's, as well as flavors from Graeter's, Ben & Jerry's, Ample Hills, Snoqualmie, McConnell's and Van Leeuwen. It was tough work, but somebody had to do it.

The ice creams that stood out to us the most were unique in some way -- either the base flavor, the texture or the pieces in the ice cream (because we're seeing a lot of that these days), were original. Our favorites just spoke to us, for their individuality and their fresh, authentic flavors. One ice cream's consistency was unlike anything we've ever had -- it was like a cross between ice cream and marshmallow fluff. One ice cream contained pieces of cake that were the moistest, most delicious morsels we've ever tasted. Another was so light and fresh we felt like we had been transported to a backyard picnic. It's hard to go wrong with ice cream, but these ice creams are seriously right.

Here are 13 ice cream flavors we're super excited about this summer.






Want to read more from HuffPost Taste? Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr.