Saturday Sweets: JetBlue’s Mint Experience Gets Even Cooler With Locally Sourced Artisanal Ice Creams

This week JetBlue announced its newest addition to its Mint experience with a locally curated ice cream program that features favorite flavors from artisanal ice makers based in Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco. The fresh approach to its ice cream program allows JetBlue to stay true to Mint’s locally curated roots as it expands the premium experience to new cities on both coasts.

Mint offers a more personal approach to service and features exceptional hospitality from specially trained crewmembers. These local purveyors will offer a rotating selection of ice cream flavors giving Mint customers a taste – literally – of the region from where their flight departs.

So far they’ve picked five cities with nearby JetBlue terminals to source the local ice cream for their flights. The Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, of course made the cut. Their pick comes straight to the air from The Frieze Ice Cream Factory. I got to sample the three flavors they will be carrying on their flights and they are so good, I might even start looking up flights.

Check out the cities featured below and where their ice cream is coming from:

• South Florida - The Frieze: This 30-year-old ice cream factory, known for delivering sweet scoops to those in South Florida, brings some of its most popular creations to the skies, including its renowned Indian mango sorbet and Banana Rama ice cream.

• New York, JFK - Blue Marble: This Brooklyn shop had been serving ridiculously delicious organic ice cream in Mint since the launch of the service in 2014. Classic, straight-forward and pure flavors such as blueberry ice cream and blood orange sorbet continue to delight the taste buds of flyers on transcontinental service.
• Los Angeles - Coolhaus: Founded in Los Angeles in 2008 as a food truck delivering sweet scoops, the ice cream powerhouse has a national fleet that now will even be found at 30,000 feet. Travelers will enjoy truly unique, sweet-meets-savory flavors, including dirty mint ice cream and strawberry mojito sorbet.
• San Francisco - Double Rainbow: This San Francisco super-premium ice cream contains only the freshest and purest ingredients, resulting in a rich and delectable creamy treat. Awarded the best ice cream in America, flyers will be hooked on dulce de leche and raspberry sorbet after just one spoonful.
• Boston - Toscanini’s: Serving the best ice cream in Boston since 1981, this successful small business has become a Cambridge institution and brings its hand-made gourmet delights, including signature flavors B3 (brown butter, brown sugar and brownie) ice cream and berry sorbet to those in Mint.  

“These are the local artisanal ice creams you wait in line for on a hot summer night, not the industrial dairy dessert products that you’d find in other premium cabins,” said Jamie Perry, vice president of marketing. “Mint’s expansion gives us the opportunity to discover amazing new local partners across our network bringing the best ingredients and scrumptious sweets to our customers.”

Since launching, Mint has become a favorite way for celebrities, technology executives, creatives, and entrepreneurs to travel across the country. Recognized by Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards, which honors innovative and disruptive design that pushes boundaries and seeks to change the world, Mint continues to offer stellar service and address the needs of the modern traveler. JetBlue keeps Mint’s food offering fresh by developing meaningful relationships in the culinary industry and showcasing the exceptional flavors of the cities served. In April, JetBlue launched pre-arrival cookies with the culinary empire Milk Bar and on redeye flights, Milk Bar’s Hard Body green juice (a selection from Milk Bar’s “LIFE” line of healthy products) and well-known Bagel Rounds are now served in a Milk Bar to-go bag.

The regional ice cream program offers customers the chance to indulge in decadent flavors while enjoying the Mint experience, including the longest fully-flat bed seating in the U.S. domestic premium market (a), fully enclosed private suites, a 15-inch flat screen with complimentary entertainment and the unmatched hospitality of JetBlue crewmembers.