Discontinued Ben & Jerry's Flavors We'll Probably Never Eat Again

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were buddies who grew up together on Long Island. When a career in pottery and medical school didn't pan out of the duo, they thought up opening a bagel shop together. Equipment would cost too much so they took a $5 course in ice cream making and opened their first scoop shop in a former Burlington, Vermont gas station back in 1978. The ice cream makers not only infused the flavors with a playful hippie spirit, but also created a fun culture with a conscience centered on making the world both a more delicious and better place.

Over the course of its history, the company (now owned by Unilever) has produced hundreds of flavors. However, for every one that sticks around for what seems like forever — like Cherry Garcia, New York Super Fudge Chunk, and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough — there are over 300 that have been buried in the famed Ben & Jerry's Flavor Graveyard. Once sent there, it's hard to make it back to life in a pint. While The Takeout would love to resurrect all those bygone flavors all for posterity's sake, we're going to focus on some of these discontinued gems and duds that we'll probably never get to eat again.

The Canadian band Barenaked Ladies has seven top Billboard 100 Hit Songs and two Grammy nominations to its name. If that wasn't enough, they also were bestowed with the rare honor of having a Ben & Jerry's flavor dedicated to them. The year 2009 saw the band at a crossroads, with frontman Steven Page exiting, and pints of If I Had A Million Flavours hitting stores, which was a play on their song "If I Had A Million Dollars." Some of those "flavors" included chocolate and vanilla ice creams, chocolate-covered toffee, white chocolate chunks, peanut butter filled chocolatey cups, and chocolate-covered almonds.

Shoshana Price, brand building manager for Ben & Jerry's Canada related to The National Post, "Barenaked Ladies are fun, iconic, wacky and definitely socially conscious. No matter what happens with them, we're with them through thick and thin ice cream scoops." For every pint sold, a portion of the proceeds benefited ABC Literacy, which champions adult literacy in Canada. The sweet music on this flavor was turned off in 2020.

When it comes to pop culture collaborations, Ben & Jerry's has been happy to share its music tastes in the form of ice cream flavors. In 2007, it professed its love of music legend and Farm Aid co-founder Willie Nelson in the form of a namesake Country Peach Cobbler. While the sound of peach ice cream with cinnamon-sugar shortbread pieces & a peach swirl sounded magical, The Oregonian's The Edge column took umbrage with its unspectacular sounding flavor name. It said, "Have they given up trying to come up with amusing names for their celebrity-based ice creams? Why not Willie Nelson's IRS-kimo Pie? Or Willie Nelson's Ethanalmond Roca?"

Not long after its release, Ben & Jerry's was forced to issue a voluntary recall due to "undeclared wheat." As one commentator on The Straight Dope message board said, "I'm guessing they misspelled "weed.'" Such matters didn't dent its popularity with fans, which made it a No. 2 favorite in its first year. While the flavor was retired sometime in 2013, the artist himself has shown no signs of slowing down, even in his ninth decade on earth.

Starting in 2006, "30 Rock" took viewers on a hilarious whirlwind tour of putting together a "Saturday Night Live"-esque show, but in a handy half-an-hour format. The show called it quits in 2013, and in that same year, Ben & Jerry's honored the instant-classic NBC sitcom with its own flavor. The show centered around whip-smart show-runner Liz Lemon, and her fruity name was tailor-made for a citrusy flavor. It's hard not to laugh at the name of Liz Lemon Greek Frozen Yogurt, and smile at packaging, which featured an ever-cheery photo of the titular Tina Fey character. Yet, its ingredients of lemon Greek yogurt, dolled up with a blueberry lavender swirl, was serious business. Plus, a portion of the proceeds sold of the ice cream were donated to charity close to Fey's heart — the child language and literacy organization Jumpstart.

Ben & Jerry's co-founder Jerry Greenfield was a big fan of the show, telling The Wall Street Journal, "It's incredibly well-written and quick. Sometimes I have to watch the same episode twice to catch it all." As for the flavor it inspired, he noted it was "as sweet and tart as Liz Lemon herself."

The custard and sugary crisp dessert that's Crème Brûlée is so luscious and fancy that it requires three accent marks. In 2007, Ben & Jerry's sought to capture that taste with a sweet custard ice cream paired with a caramelized sugar swirl. A reviewer On Second Scoop noted it tasted super creamy, and overly sweet, saying, "If you were to eat more, you're either going to be going into a sugar coma soon or scheduling a trip to your dentist."

This sweet flavor hung around for five years before becoming sweet nothings by 2012. While not exactly the same thing, the best one can get these days under the Ben & Jerry's banner is Crème Brûlée Cookie Non-Dairy, which was introduced in 2020.

Instead of honoring "Saturday Night Live" as a whole, in 2011, Ben & Jerry's immortalized the faux NPR show "Delicious Dish" sketch hosted by Ana Gasteyer and Molly Shannon. Even more specifically, this new ice cream flavor centered around one bit about the poorly named food balls produced by one Pete Schweddy, who was portrayed by an equally-mild-mannered Alec Baldwin.

"Schweddy Balls" produced a lot of laughs through innuendo in that classic sketch, and made mouths happy through this limited batch flavor. Inside a pint, vanilla ice cream served as host to a hint of rum, fudge covered rum, and malt balls. In a press release, Baldwin said, "Thanks to Ben & Jerry's, the goodness of the Schweddy family recipe won't go with me to the great beyond." He added, "Ben & Jerry's and Schweddy. Two great names in American dessert, together at last."

In 2005 Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's, told The Independent, "Businesses are really the most powerful force in today's society, particularly with issues like climate change because they are burning fossil fuels. Ben and Jerry's as an ice-cream company certainly is a large power consumer, freezing ice cream, but we use green energy. That was also the same year the company released a flavor with a message called Fossil Fuel.

Fossil Fuel began life with just a name, and the ingredients came later, which included sweet cream ice cream with chocolate pieces, fudge dinosaurs and a fudge swirl. This one stayed above ground for five years before being buried for good. Ben & Jerry's came forward in 2016 to explain its demise, "We made the decision to lay it to rest in the Flavor Graveyard, because we believe that fossil fuels, whether ice cream or the real thing, belong in the ground! We must put an end to investment in fossil fuels if we hope to save our climate."

The comedy troupe Monty Python is one of the wittiest groups of gents to ever grace the world, and Ben & Jerry's honored their spirit with a very punny flavor called Vermonty Python. It launched in 2006, and was similar to the White Russian one as a coffee liqueur ice cream, but this one was further outfitted with a chocolate cookie crumb swirl and tiny fudge cows. The cows were a nod to the ones that went flying over the castle in the classic 1975 film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

This flavor lasted a mere two years before there were no more curtain calls requested for it. Even in defense of its decision to discontinue it, Ben & Jerry's took the high and hilarious road to explain why, in pure Monty Python fashion. In a 2016 post on its site, it said many things, including, "Fart in our general direction if it so pleases you, but there's nothing you could do that would make us bring out our dead flavor."

Alcoholic drinks were a common inspiration for Ben & Jerry's flavors, and the company had the best intentions when it put Black & Tan on tap for ice cream eaters back in 2006. The beer of the same name combines a light one, like a Bass Ale, with a darker one, usually a Guinness Stout. Ben & Jerry's mimicking concoction saw a stout ice cream swirled with chocolate ice cream.

While the flavor was only sold in the U.S., its name stirred up bad memories for those who knew their Irish history. Apparently Ben & Jerry's was unaware that "black and tans" was also the nickname of a brutal group of British police who battled during Ireland's war of independence. The company issued an apology, saying in a statement, "Any reference on our part to the British Army unit was absolutely unintentional and no ill-will was ever intended." This flavor was given a dishonorable discharge that same year.

Back in the early days, Ben & Jerry's was very selective about naming flavors after living legends. Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia was the first to be honored with a flavor — Cherry Garcia, and counterculture hippie clown Wavy Gravy (born Hugh Romney) got his own namesake flavor, which hit stores in 1993. In an interview with the Seva Foundation, Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen said "I personally chose Wavy to be the next living flavor because he encapsulates taking 60s values and actualizing them in the present day."

Wavy Gravy as a person was a colorful person, and his Ben & Jerry's pint was equally colorful on the outside packaging, as well as the ice cream itself. The treat found caramel and cashew nut ice cream tripped up with a chocolate hazelnut fudge swirl and roasted almonds. While the long strange this of this flavor ended in 2001, with a brief return in 2005, Mr. Gravy still has a right to a lifetime supply of free Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

The sitcom "Seinfeld" ruled the airwaves from 1989 to 1998, and perhaps became even more beloved in reruns. While there are enough jokes to launch a thousand Ben & Jerry's flavors, the brand chose to celebrate the show, and its fictional Christmas-alternative holiday Festivus with a flavor of the same name. When coming up with the flavor, Ben & Jerry's knew it had to pay perfect tribute, and Flavor Guru Rob Douglas recalled, "We pondered long and hard about what a holiday ice cream flavor should be, and yadda, yadda, yadda, Festivus was born. This flavor kicks fruitcake's ass!"

Festivus (a holiday for the rest of us) first hit stores in 2000, and a spoonful would take an eater on the gift of brown sugar cinnamon ice cream stuffed with gingerbread cookies and a ginger caramel swirl. This limited run item worked well enough that it returned for an encore in 2001. Fans begging for its return have continued to air the grievances, but found brief satisfaction in the reincarnation of Festivus in the form of Gingerbread Cookie in 2004, and Gingersnap five years later.

The year 1999 was busy for Ben & Jerry's flavor drops. Most of the newbies were self-explanatory, with names like Southern Pecan Pie, Triple Caramel Chunk, Mocha Latte, and the cozy sounding Chocolate Comfort. However, there was one new moo-ver that was fun to say, and had a lot going on — Bovinity Divinity.

This love letter to cows featured milk chocolate ice cream with cow-shaped white fudge pieces, swirled with the shaded opposite — white chocolate ice cream with cow-shaped dark fudge pieces. Apparently fans didn't feel like returning the love, as this flavor cowered and was let out to pasture sometime in 2001. The cow pieces did see a sort of second life after death in the Vermonty Python flavor that arrived five years later.

Cracker Jack popcorn is such an American snacking institution that it once inspired a Pepsi flavor, and even a 2000 Ben & Jerry's ice cream. That summer, customers were able to step up to the plate and try the flavor that combined the talents of caramel ice cream, white fudge-covered caramel popcorn, toffee-coated peanuts, and a caramel swirl. Syndicated food columnist Carolyn Wyman lamented, "I'm sure the white chocolate coating was meant to keep the popcorn from getting soggy, but it ends up just being a weird coating for soggy popcorn."

Just because it didn't work for Ben & Jerry's doesn't mean others haven't stopped trying. Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams tried its own spin, and even borrowed the name, in reverse, complete with excitation points for 2018's Popcorn! Peanuts!

After a Grateful Dead benefit show in 1988, co-founder Ben Cohen met Dr. Jason Clay, who urged the ice cream maker to help combat deforestation by buying Brazilian nuts and cashews from reforested land. That was the impetus for its Rainforest Crunch flavor, which launched in 1989 and lasted a decade.

Ben & Jerry also owned a separate company called Community Products Inc., which used those Brazilian nuts bought directly from farmers to produce a standalone buttercrunch candy called Rainforest Crunch. Pieces of that bar, along with cashews made for quite a jungle within a vanilla ice cream of the same name that retailed $100 million in sales. Dr. Clay told The St. Joseph News-Press in 2005, "We showed that you could are generate more money from nuts collected in a rainforest than you could if you cut it all down and converted it to pasture."

In the mid-'90s, Ben & Jerry's ran a contest for customers to come up with a new ice cream flavor that was quintessentially British. While Jack The Ripple, John Lemon, Minty Python and The Rolling Scones were brilliantly inspired ideas, a riff on the battle hymn "Rule Britannia" inspired Sarah Moynihan-Williams to come up with the idea for "Cool Britannia."

The phrase "Cool Britannia" first made waves in a 1967 song by Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, but Ben & Jerry's flavor, where vanilla ice cream plays around with strawberries and fudge covered shortbread, gave it a whole new life when it was released IN British stores in 1996. At the time, London was in full swing in fashion, pop culture, and politics, with figureheads like Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Spice Girls, and BritPop bands like Blur, Oasis, and Pulp raising optimism and excitement levels. This new era was being ushered in as Cool Britannia, with endless headlines saying as such. Within a couple of years, everyone in the phrase fell out of favor with the public, and Ben & Jerry's fell out on the flavor itself, abdicating it from British stores by the summer of 1998.

A white Russian cocktail is a vodka and coffee liqueur concoction beloved by The Dude of "The Big Lebowski," and once inspired a Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor featuring coffee ice cream with Kahlúa. Ben & Jerry's officially lists its White Russian flavor's birth year as 1986, but there's evidence of its existence two years prior, when Eric Peterson of The Bennington Banner declared it "the best ice cream flavor in the world."

White Russian said "do svidaniya" in 1996, but fans kept willing it back to life. Mary Kamm, Ben & Jerry's director of research and development told Gannett News Services that because of "consistent feedback from people who can't live without it," White Russian was brought back from the "dead," sort of. In 2000, the company resurrected it and Coffee, Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz! For a 2Twisted-in-one flavor called From Russia With Buzz, and it returned to scoop shops briefly in 2013.

In 1989, Ben & Jerry's gave Sugar Plum a try, where pieces of the red fruit danced within the creaminess of caramel ice cream. Customers didn't know what to think of it, and a single pint sold after three weeks in stores. The flavor disappeared by 1990.

For those hoping for the fairy to bring back Sugar Plum to stores, Mary Kamm, Ben & Jerry's director of research and development, put such thoughts to rest when she told Gannett News Services in 2000, "Plums are not something people eat in their ice cream." To this day, the flavor is a "dreaded" one to the brass at HQ. Sean Greenwood, Ben & Jerry's Grand Poobah of Publicity told NPR, "I remember eating it fresh. It was not good. It was just not one that kind of pleased the pallet in any way." The company's Flavor Guru, Peter Lind labeled it "the worst flavor we ever had." Ouch.

The very first sandwich recipe that thought of uniting the talents of peanut butter and jelly saw the print light of day in 1901. Ben & Jerry's started scooping 77 years later, and attempted to capture that dynamic duo in a cone by 1989. This flavor used peanut butter ice cream as a base, which played host to peanut butter bits and a strawberry jelly swirl.

Peanut Butter & Jelly may work wonders between bread, and as an ice cream flavor, it may have sounded good on paper, but it didn't work as a reality. The company went on to label this misfire as one of its top ten "weirdest" flavors ever. That didn't stop the company from trying again, and 2013 saw the limited release of Peanut Butter Jam Session, with raspberry being the fruit preserve on hand.