French’s mustard ice cream has met its match with Oscar Mayer’s Ice Dog

By Melissa Locker

While the War on Christmas gets a lot of publicity, the War on Ice Cream has flown under the radar until now. Sure, there have been assaults before (like pickle-flavored soft serve), but lately it seems as if we’re seeing a coordinated attack on all that is good about ice cream.

First, a delivery of French’s mustard-flavored ice cream arrived at Fast Company HQ, which of course was eaten, because it’s an office and everyone eats everything at an office. The ice cream is a collaboration between the iconic yellow mustard brand and Coolhaus Ice Cream to mark National Mustard Day. (That’s on August 3, so you better start planning your schedule of mustard-themed events.) Coolhaus started serving up the unlikely combination of ice cream and yellow mustard with a pretzel cookie at its Los Angeles and New York City locations for a limited time beginning on August 1.

But this War on Ice Cream was a two-pronged attack. Not to let any misguided co-branding go untopped, Oscar Mayer saw French’s Yellow Mustard ice cream and decided the perfect pairing—nay, the only pairing—was hot dog ice cream.

Oscar Mayer, which is waging a Twitter war with French’s as we speak, teamed up with New York City-based Il Laboratorio Del Gelato to corrupt some perfectly good gelato with real bits of candied Oscar Mayer hot dogs, swirled with spicy Dijon Gelato, and “hot dog sweet cream,” a phrase that cannot be typed without gagging.

That unholy combination will be smooshed into hot dog shape, served on a cookie bun, and dubbed the Ice Dog Sandwich to mark the definitely not-made-up holiday of National Ice Cream Sandwich Day, aka August 2. That faux holiday is no excuse for this behavior, Oscar Mayer. The hot dog-flavored ice cream sandwiches will be bestowed upon the unlucky people of New York the week of August 12, when the Weinermobile is done being an Airbnb, and now you know why everyone flees New York in the summer.

But really, what did we ever do to deserve this? Oh, right.

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