Sebastian’s Ice Cream may have been founded in 2005, but master sorbetero Ian Carandang considers his brand to be much older.
“I peg Sebastian’s official birth at 1997 so we’re coming up on almost 30 years, which I try not to dwell on too much because it certainly doesn’t feel that way. In some ways, it feels like I’m just hitting my stride.”
Long before small-batch, craft ice cream became mainstream, the brand was already producing premium flavors in limited batches using high-quality ingredients—all while keeping them accessible to everyday Filipinos. More than two decades later, Sebastian’s continues to push the boundaries of local ice cream through inventive flavors that celebrate both Filipino ingredients and culinary creativity—more especially now when the market is ripe and ready for more experimental options.
“I think it’s an exciting time for innovation,” he says. “For Filipino ice cream and Filipino food in general, we’re in a golden age where the market is finally embracing innovation in Filipino food and more importantly, being willing to pay premium prices for it. For the longest time the colonial mentality was that splurging was meant for foreign food, and eating Pinoy food was just for casual dining or just eating at home. When the market is hungry for brand new ideas and is willing to pay for it, that’s when the floodgates truly open.”
Why Ian Carandang Believes Carabao Milk Could Make the World’s Best Ice Cream
He has done champorado and dilis, tibok-tibok, sapin-sapin, and even a keso Collection. But if ever there’s one ingredient Ian Carandang still dreams of building an ice cream around, it’s carabao milk.
“I want the carabao milk industry to become bigger so the price can come down to be more reasonably comparable to the milk we have available now. I know some gelato brands use it, but the price is still prohibitive compared to cows milk. If it became competitive enough that all Pinoy ice cream makers could use it, and that we could make actual cream from carabao milk, it would instantly push the Philippines to having the best ice cream in the world, hands down.”
He adds, “Fresh carabao milk is one of my most favorite foods ever. When you drink it, the finish feels like melted ice cream. Dark Chocolate Carabao Milk from Mister Moo is like Crack to me; I can chug an entire liter in one sitting and I’m lactose intolerant. If I could only make the numbers work, I would switch to 100% carabao milk in a heartbeat.”
Sebastian’s Most Experimental Flavor: Once In A Blue Moon
Once in a Blue Moon (cheese ice cream with Danish Blue Cheese chunks topped with walnuts and drizzled with honey)! This was very early on when we first started. I noticed that blue cheese stayed soft to the bite even when frozen and thought it would make a good mix-in. Blue Cheese of course is a polarizing food that people either love or hate. I added honey and walnuts at the end because that’s how I like to eat cheese on a cheese plate.
Not only was this super experimental, it was also very expensive, much more so than our regular flavors. I really didn’t think this would sell, but I liked it personally so I just wrote about it on social media. The response was so overwhelmingly positive I said “ok, we’ll do one batch for y’all just so you can satisfy your curiosity”. It sold out instantly, and the same thing happened when I made another batch. I told everyone I’d keep it on the freezer display until you all got tired of it, and over 15 years later, it’s still on the display, a permanent part of our lineup and one of our signature flavors.
It’s significant because it was the first time it showed to me the power of social media and communicating to our fanbase, and more importantly, it showed me that we had an audience that was willing to give us the benefit of the doubt in our more adventurous offerings, which paved the way for future flavors like Green Mango Sorbet with Bagoong and Champorado with Dilis.
Ian Carandang’s Personal Favorite: Butter Pecan
Butter Pecan is my favorite to eat. The flavor really speaks to me. Just that subtle richness of the Butter Ice Cream that’s almost like vanilla but not quite. (Historical research reveals that Butter Pecan was invented by African Americans because Vanilla Ice Cream was deemed “not worthy” of Black people, so there’s some actual suffering and beauty behind that flavor.) I love crunchy nuts in my ice cream and pecan has a unique flavor that goes perfectly with the butter ice cream base.
There’s a little bit of nostalgia too. When I was a kid I loved Coney Island Ice Cream’s ‘New York New York’, this vanilla looking ice cream that didn’t taste like vanilla with a crunchy nut for texture. It was the only flavor I ever got from them. I never forgot about that flavor and when I tried recreating it from memory 20 years later I landed on an unsalted butter ice cream with cashews.
A few years after that I had a chance encounter with one of the owners and I mentioned my love of the flavor and they said that was their version of Butter Pecan, so even back then, that flavor and I were meant to be even when I didn’t know what Butter Pecan was.
Sebastian’s All-Time Bestseller: Cookie Dough
Cookie Dough. It was our top flavor right out of the gate, and it has remained our bestselling flavor ever since. It’s a good thing too because it’s one of the cheaper flavors to make (cookie dough as a mix-in is fairly cheap to make compared to other mix-ins). It would be accurate to say Sebastian’s is the house built by Cookie Dough.
Sebastian’s Biggest Fail: Bagoong Ice Cream
Biggest disaster in the test kitchen was Bagoong Ice Cream, which I must emphasize never made it out of the testing phase because I don’t want to get emails asking me to make it. It started out fairly innocuously. A test of making Gochijuang Ice Cream turned out well enough; it tasted funky, fermented and savory. I figured since it was a fermented product the same would apply to Bagoong. Big no on that one. Blending the shrimp paste with dairy somehow intensified the lansa flavor and made it truly disgusting. I don’t have many disaster ideas, this one is at the top of the list.
Ian Carandang’s Dream Flavor: Corn
I’d say, at the moment, all the flavors I’ve wanted to make, I have. The most recent one was Corn Ice Cream making an intense corn flavor. That vexed me for a while until I found the right trick and now I even have a Corn Sorbet coming out that is literally the essence of corn. Having said that, I’m sure there will be another challenge to figure out that will come because that’s the beautiful thing about food, you can never really know everything because it’s always changing and growing. Dream collabs are easy: My Ice Cream senseis Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield. After that, Milk Bar’s Cristina Tosi.
Sebastian’s Surprise Hit: Pastillas de Leche
Every flavor that makes it onto the display I believe is strong enough to succeed (not all of them do). That said, if it’s about surpassing expectations, then that would be Pastillas de Leche. It’s a very simple flavor; Condensed Milk Ice Cream with chunks of homemade pastillas, inspired by the soft Bulacan-style pastillas which I absolutely love.
Once I finish developing a flavor and it goes on to the display I basically forget about it and move on to the next thing. Maybe a year or two after that I notice that Pastillas de Leche keeps regularly making it back to the rotating lineup. I ask our scooper girls what’s up and they tell me that people like it, and that when it’s not on the display, people always ask for it. I noticed this firsthand when I lingered at the shop.
The wild thing about it was that this was never one of the new flavors I actively “pushed” (i.e. make a small promotional campaign with photos and social media posts) to try and give it a boost in promoting. This was just dropped on the display one day with no fanfare and people just latched onto it. It has since become one of our permanent flavors and taught me about “pillars”, i.e. products like Cookie Dough that sell themselves with no need for promotion and become the foundation of our brand. It also taught me that ultimately, the public will like what it wants to like and promotion can only go so far.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ian Carandang is the founder and master sorbetero behind Sebastian’s Ice Cream, one of the Philippines’ pioneering craft ice cream brands.
Cookie Dough has remained Sebastian’s Ice Cream’s bestselling flavor since it first launched.
His personal favorite is Butter Pecan, which he says combines nostalgia with a rich butter ice cream base and crunchy pecans.
Once in a Blue Moon, a blue cheese ice cream with walnuts and honey, exceeded expectations and has remained a permanent menu item for over 15 years.
A test batch of Bagoong Ice Cream never made it past the kitchen after the shrimp paste created an overwhelmingly fishy flavor.
He dreams of making ice cream entirely with carabao milk, believing it could produce some of the best ice cream in the world.
