Aerosol-Propelled Alcohol Delivery Device

Cream Alcohol Infused Whipped Cream is a product that a right-thinking person could easily love to hate. After all, it is superbly packaged and marketed to those who seek Essence of Irresponsibility in a can. It's aerosol-propelled alcoholic whipped cream, people—what sort of non-stripper-related situation could possibly require the whipped cream to be alcoholic? "CONSUME RESPONSIBLY," notes the back of the can, all too cognizant of the lawsuits that are slowly circling the brand overhead like patient vultures.

With this as background, my pretasting opinion of Cream was both very high (way to nail down a demographic and sell to it, dudes: The cans use a font that immediately calls to mind lube and/or a rave flier) and very low—once you've decided to sell alcoholic whipped cream to cretins for $10, you don't really have to deliver on the flavor front.

And yet, shockingly, Cream delivers on the flavor front, at least in one variety. Of the three flavors sampled (chocolate, caramel, and cherry), chocolate seemed to make the most sense: The heavy cocoa bump it packed was a nice counterpart to the mild alcoholic burn. On top of ice cream, floating atop Kahlúa, with fruit, licked straight off a plate … this stuff is far better than you'd hope. It's rich in flavor, fluffily creamy, neither soggy nor chemical as you might fear. Caramel tasted decent if a bit washed out, and cherry was neither perfect off-the-tree fruit nor horrifying artificial candy—the taste rested somewhere in between.

James Norton edits the Upper Midwestern food journal Heavy Table. He's also the coauthor of a book on Wisconsin's master cheesemakers. For his Supertaster Daily videos, he samples offerings from supermarket aisles and fast-food menus. (Click here to see all of James's previous Supertaster work.) You can follow him on Twitter and fan him on Facebook.