Shamrock Shakedown Giveaway!

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2 FREE Shamrock Shake cards that have been provided by McDonald’s will go out to 2 Random winners!
TO ENTER:
subject: SHAMROCK
If you are chosen we will reach out to you for your mailing address
WINNERS ANNOUNCED ON 3/7/12

Many folks in New Jersey are pissed off that the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Hoboken is cancelled this year. Things usually get pretty out of hand so the city is taking a break from it. I don’t get involved in parades because they bore the shit out of me. Drinking tons of beer is of course fun, but not with thousands of other drunken boozers roaming the streets and getting behind the wheel. Aside from eating a bowl of me Lucky Charms, I have other plans this St.Patrick’s Day.

I don’t really participate in the yearly resurgence of corned beef and cabbage, but I need MINT in my life constantly. Usually the one time of year that everything becomes MINT is in March because St. Patrick’s Day turns everything green and green often means MINT! There’s no better mint offering than mint ice cream! And since I’m obsessed with using straws, The Shamrock Shake is like a magic pot of gold for me.

In addition to consistently bringing back the McRib, McDonald’s has been keeping it real with their classic Shamrock Shake as well. The best part: they are now available nationwide, not just in select mystery locations. Just as I write this, as the Irish say, I’m really gummin’ for a Shamrock Shake. The only thing that would make the shake experience even better is if McD’s was offering this green delicacy in  Uncle O’Grimacey collector cups! Now, REMEMBER, you only have until MARCH 25th before the Shamrock Shakes disappear, so get your arses to McD’s to enjoy one!

York’s Batty Peppermint Patties!

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I’ve always been a major proponent of anything in a “pattie” formation. Whether it’s a buger, a breakfast sausage, or a delicious and refreshing mint chocolate treat. York Peppermint Patties really give me the cool sensation of skiing in the Swiss Alps…or being a vampire and turning into a bat. York Peppermint Patties are like crack for me because I could just keep eating them until my shit smells like mint. That doesn’t happen, but a man can dream. Until that dream comes to fruition, I really enjoyed eating these new York Peppermint Patties that are now in Batty Pattie shape for the Halloween season!
Your Trick or Treat pail or bag will not be disappointed if these Halloween York Batty Patties drop in. Unlike the foil wrapped individual patties, these are tailor made for Halloween because the wrapper is not as easy to tamper with. That menacing bat is not too shabby either! And parents will be pleased they are low in fat and made with dark chocolate. That still doesn’t give me an excuse to eat 8 of them after lunch. There’s never an excuse for that. That’s just wrong. Again, hoping for a farty mint miracle. Silly me.
For some reason any type of mint candy was never popular with my group of friends. Their taste always veered toward the more whacky, in your face type of candy. The more sour, sugary, and atomic the better it seemed. Not me. Give me mint any day and if its soft, irresistible, and in batty pattie form, well I just hit the jackpot!

Upstate Farms Intense Mint Chip and Orange Scream Milk

I don’t scream for ice cream, I sort of give a half-assed whimper. Considering all the junk food and candy that I talk about here at the Armpit, I’m actually not a big fan dessert or candy. If I have to choose a dessert, I enjoy simple stuff like milk and cookies. Not surprisingly, chocolate chip cookies are one of my favorites, and if they’re homemade I like them even more. But when you’re dealing with a strange guy like me, it can never be that easy. Milk and cookies aren’t much work to whip up, but not in my case. I like my chocolate chip cookies homemade, and WITHOUT the chocolate chips! To me they just interfere with my favorite part of the cookie.

Amongst my profusion of hangups, quirks, and pet peeves, I also loathe the chips of chocolate in Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. The funny part is, I’m not a chocolate hater, it’s just that the chips ultimately get in the way of my enjoyment of the dessert. The chips in mint chocolate chip ice cream always get stuck in my teeth and it’s super annoying. I’d like to enjoy the chocolate but I can’t because it makes a pit stop in my molars and doesn’t come out until I brush my teeth. If I could just get the pastel green mint ice cream sans the chocolate chips, I’d be a pig in shit. The only way I could take it to the next level is if I had mint (remember: no chocolate chips) in “soft ice cream” form rather than “hard.” 
When I was a kid I remember telling my sister that I liked letting my ice cream turn into “soup.” Once my ice cream liquefied I would just drink it right out of the bowl. Drinkable ice cream was my favorite, and still is. I even like to let my ICEE’s and Slurpee’s melt so I could get the prime flavor of the syrup without the minuscule ice pellets getting in the way and freezing my brain. To sum up what you’ve just read: I like my Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream melted and without chocolate chips in it.

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On my weekly trip to Wegman’s, I was waiting in line to check out but got distracted by a plastic bottle of green liquid in a refrigerated section near the exit. Wegman’s has an extra dairy section at the front of the store for convenience, in case you don’t feel like running all the way to the back of the store just to grab a gallon of milk. I grabbed the “Intense” Mint Chip flavor by Upstate Farms immediately as if I was the only person who knew this treasure was on the shelf! 

Aside from name dropping their own brand name about 62 times, (Intense!) the label on the back of the bottle describes the drink as “…a creamy and indulgent drink…” Then the label goes on to say “This is the drink of choice for the mint chip ice cream lover on the go.” It’s fairly awesome that they’re actually marketing a drink to a group of people known as “mint chip ice cream lovers.” I never realized I was part of that demographic, but I like it! The Intense Mint Chip contains the typical benefits of milk such as vitamins and protein, but unfortunately has 35 MG’s of cholesterol in case you’d rather not have a heart attack.

Intense Mint Chip is the type of drink you want to sip on a crisp moonlit night while you’re rolling down the highway as the street lights are streaking past you like your in light speed and the stereo is blasting Laura Branigan’s “Self Control.” It doesn’t matter that you’re sipping milk…you still feel really cool. Trust me.

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Considering how exalted the Mint Chip flavor is, the Orange Scream can’t come close to its greatness. Think of the Intense Orange Scream as the sub par sequel, or the redheaded stepchild of the Intense milk family. Upstate Farms falls short with their Orange Scream, which is yet another failed attempt at creating the classic orange cream flavor. (Sunkist also failed recently with their miserable orange cream float.) One of the major strikes against Orange Scream is that it substitutes what’s supposed to be a nondescript “cream” flavor for a strong vanilla flavor. The cream shouldn’t necessarily be defined as “vanilla” because then it has the chance to overpower the orange flavor. The vanilla flavor may be forgiven if it isn’t a true “vanilla bean” flavor since a regular “no frills” vanilla would work better. There’s an exact balance of orange and cream flavor that needs to be perfected to achieve orange cream paradise. On a positive note, unlike the mint chip, the orange scream is creamy yet still low fat. Its label is pretty exciting or should I say…INTENSE! Even though I didn’t enjoy their Orange Scream formula, I have to hand it to Upstate Farms just for their sheer variety of offerings such as Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla, Cookies and Cream, and Mocha Java. Now all us Star Wars fans need is an “Intense Blue: A New Hope Special Edition Milk.” I hear it’s going to be high in midichlorians. Come on, where’s the freakin marketing people now? Can I get some kickbacks for that?

Ice Breakers Lemon Iced Tea Mints

It’s been so blazingly hot here in New Jersey that my writing powers were slowly depleting until I found some inspiration from a package of mints. I found these Ice Breakers Sugar Free Lemon Iced Tea flavored mints while on line at the grocery store. Iced Tea has always been my favorite beverage…that is…whenever I run out of everclear.

As far as I know, Fresca, prune juice, and Kaopectate are NOT the official drinks of suburbia. I would say the reigning king of libations in suburbia especially in the’80s was Kool-Aid, but in my household it was most definitely Iced Tea. If anyone ranging from a friend to a washing machine repair man walked into my house, my mom offered them iced tea as if they were homeless and hadn’t had any liquid pass through their bodies in a decade. Of course the hospitality never ended there but as it pertains to this article, if we compared the scenario to a religious ceremony iced tea was the liquid of the Gods. To the shock and outrage of many people, I’m not a big fan of bread which renders me “staff of life deficient,” so I must compensate with plenty of Iced Tea.

As for gum, I don’t chew Ice Breakers that often because I don’t really need little mint crystals in my gum. I do enjoy mints and seeing this fine product hit the shelves only made me realize there’s a lack of beverage flavored mints. Although, when the revolution of drink based breath fresheners does commence, I pray mints all over the world model their flavors off of these. Then take cover because mouth explosions will take place everywhere.

These Lemon Iced Tea mints bear a surprisingly accurate taste to the real thing. Plus, any product that boasts “Ultimate Mouth Freshening” must be pretty damn effective. I think part of me really enjoyed these because they aren’t just a run of the mill mint with a typical flavor. I commend Ice Breakers for taking a chance on a cool new flavor while keeping them sugar free. It also doesn’t hurt that they remind me of the old style certs. Has anyone tried these yet?