I love ice cream as much as the next guy. OK, way more than the next guy. I've eaten far more than my fair share of Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's lux frozen treats. But though I've watched with fascination as Ben & Jerry's exalted hippie icons and the odd politician with its flavors, I've never thought of an ice cream as an icon of political opinion.

No more will I hold such a narrow world view! This weekend, Haagen-Dazs announced a new flavor, Vanilla Honey Bee. The flavor isn't meant for its delicious honey taste, as it is to bring more visibility to the plight of the honey bees (overworked, it seems, from too much travel and forced labor in the almond groves, though cell phone towers have also been suspected). Haagen-Dazs is donating $250,000 to two universities to study Colony Collapse Disorder, and a spokesperson says that 40% of the company's flavors depend (in one way or another) on bees: "We use 100% all natural ingredients like strawberries, raspberries and almonds which we get from California. The bee problem could badly hurt supply from the Pacific Northwest."

On the other side of the ice cream aisle, Ben (Cohen) and Jerry (Greenfield), founders and corporate namesakes of Ben & Jerry's, have gone public with their endorsement of Barack Obama for president. They will tour Vermont in Obamamobiles, giving away scoops of "Cherries for Change" ice cream. While fans on Obama's web site seem excited, there's no news as to what sort of flavor "Cherries for Change" is (or is it just Cherry Garcia with a new label?), whether "Baracky Road" or "Yes we Pecan" will follow, or if corporate overlord Unilever (NYSE: UL) is distributing the flavor to grocery store freezer sections near you.

Right this moment (I imagine), a flavor expert somewhere deep in the Vermont offices of Unilever ADR (NYSE:UL) unit Ben & Jerry's is asking a very, very difficult question: What does a celebrity taste like? And which celebrities do we even want to associate with vanilla ice cream, raspberry swirl and brownie bits (that would be Dave Matthews) or fudge-covered waffle cone pieces, ripples of caramel, and the patriotic vanilla ice cream (yep, Stephen Colbert).

BloggingStocks may be the only organization brave enough to wonder, should Jerry Garcia really taste like cherries and fudge? and which celebrities are the ice-creamiest? Does anyone buy the ice cream just because they like the celebrity, and, isn't that a bit weird? Do you want to taste the people you most admire? And is this all a liberal hippy conspiracy to keep ice cream Democratic?

Let's begin by exploring where this whole celebrity-ice cream flavor thing started: Jerry Garcia. He and his band the Grateful Dead, well, let's just say that may have been where the term "groupie" started. People who love the Grateful Dead, they love the Grateful Dead. Oh, my, lord. So for the liberal (and then independent) company to name a flavor after the hippiest of all hippy icons, well, totally made sense. Are you familiar with the history of celebrities and ice cream? If you do, you know that Cherry Garcia was the first ice cream ever named for a rock star, and appeared in 1987 at the suggestion of two deadheads from Portland, Maine.

Because I'm very serious about my work, I sent my husband out in the dark of night for a quart of Cherry Garcia, the flavor that started it all, and the number one flavor on Ben & Jerry's flavor roster. Cherries and "fudge flakes" (which seem very much like "pieces of chocolate" to me, but I'm not the one describing the flavors on the package) are mixed into cherry ice cream. Does Cherry Garcia deserve its place on the top of the roster? And is it because of the taste of the ice cream, or the connection with the band?