Some days have “ice cream” written all over them: The sun is strong, and there’s nothing much to do on a lazy, hazy Sunday, so you decide that digging into some ice cream is a good way to kill time and treat yourself.

This story does not take place on one of those days.

It did take place in the summer, yes (we have a serious backlog in our story pipeline). But it wasn’t the weekend; it didn’t take place in an exotic locale; and it wasn’t just another in a long list of leisure activities.

Of course, I’m not saying one ever needs an excuse to down a frozen dessert, but there are ice cream days and nons, and this was definitely the latter. Still, it was a day on which some stress had to be relieved, and ice cream, or so the author thought, might do the trick. So I moseyed on down to a local chain pharmacy to get a pint, and, after a pretty trivial amount of rumination and scanning the shelf, settled on Cinnamon Toast Crunch Ice Cream.

Before I go on, you probably want to ask me a basic question: “Alex, if you don’t like Cinnamon Toast Crunch as a cereal, why would you like it as an ice cream flavor?” No offense, but that’s a pretty stupid question, because I do like Cinnamon Toast Crunch as a cereal.

Since I am not getting paid by the word, my financial consultant advised me to simply rate the ice cream and provide a thorough telling of its journey past my taste buds. But, I won’t let that stop me – as much as I love talking taste buds, I like tangents even more, and I first want to share some broader thoughts on cinnamon.

Despite my role as a sometime ice cream critic for a vaunted magazine like The Classic W, I readily admit that I am not an expert in the culinary arts. But is there a better smell than baking cinnamon? The taste is fantastic, as well — and much more relevant for the purposes of this article, because how much do you actually smell ice cream? — but, man, I am not sure if I’ve met a better aroma than cinnamon. If you disagree, feel free to drop me a line, but I’m warning you upfront that you might get an email asking, seriously, what on earth your problem is.

Moving beyond the smell to cinnamon’s actual taste, I have to assume that the great poets of yesteryear spilled gallons of ink lauding the grandeur of cinnamon (most of Shakespeare’s sonnets were about cinnamon, right?).

Because of that, I won’t try to get fancy with my words, but I’ll just add a thought experiment: Imagine sugar. Now imagine sugar and cinnamon. As you surely just noticed, when you combine cinnamon with sugar, it actually enhances the taste of sugar. Descriptors like “delectable” and “scrumptious” are not exactly inaccurate in attempting to describe cinnamon, but I almost feel like it’s simpler to just call it a kind of witchcraft.

Returning to my dessert journey, let’s skip the somewhat boring details (paying, transport) and resume our story when I take hold of a spoon and dig into the cream.

One of the first things I noticed after the spoon hit my lips was the crunch. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that I was blindsided by the crunch, so I will: I was blindsided by the crunch. 

To be clear, I’m not saying the crunch was a negative characteristic of this ice cream. What I’m saying is that the crunch was very present.

As much of an impression as the crunch made, however, I should note that it was a bit inconsistent. I don’t know this, but I wonder if one of the pieces of the crunch might have been a little waterlogged. While the answer to that question would be of legitimate interest, I don’t presently have any way of getting to the bottom of it, so let’s not get bogged down. 

So, the crunch was distinctly there, and the texture of the ice cream itself was good. Which brings us to the taste. And oooooooh, the taste.

Have you ever had vanilla ice cream and been like “this tastes pretty good, but it just isn’t sweet enough.” If that’s the way your head works, you definitely have issues, but finding the perfect ice cream isn’t one of them, because I found the perfect ice cream.

Not to get all philosophical, but I think it’s fair to say that vanilla ice cream is kind of like an overnight stew in that it is hard to ruin, try as you might. I’m confident that the entrepreneurial minds behind this ice cream flavor did not try to ruin it, and — despite their varied additions — they didn’t. The concoction they devised and ultimately sold me was replete with incredible sweetness, legit crunch and a lot of cinnamon. But I will not mince words (much like the manufacturer didn’t mince cinnamon): there really was quite a lot of cinnamon — some might even say too much.  

Over the course of your life, you will encounter many different people, places and things. In this journey, dear friends, I implore you to remember that it is the way of fools to reduce varied shades of gray to a binary black or white. Most things you will think about — like frozen pizza, the 18th century and your own grandparents — are neither perfectly good nor perfectly bad, and this ice cream is yet another example of this truism.

When presented with as solemn a task as reviewing ice cream for a global audience, I (don’t) shiver and shake before putting forth my assessment, knowing, as I do, how the respective fates of many dessert sagas could depend upon the issuance of my virtual pen.

As you think through whether you want to eat this ice cream, I implore you to read, re-read and perhaps even re-re-read my summary above. Amid the admitted tangents, you will find my perspective on the good and the not-quite-as-good about Cinnamon Toast Crunch Ice Cream.

The final call, dear reader, is for you to make.

As for me, I ate almost a pint.