Here’s Every Discontinued Flavor in the Ben & Jerry’s Flavor Graveyard

Ben & Jerry have always had an awesome sense of humor. So when the famous ice cream company discontinued many of its decadent flavor combinations over the years, they decided to turn these unsuccessful offerings into a tourist attraction.

Behold, the Ben & Jerry’s flavor graveyard, complete with headstones and poetic epitaphs for most of their abandoned flavors!

As a hardcore ice cream junkie, I felt a sense of nostalgia visiting the Ben & Jerry’s graveyard, because it contains two of the most delicious ice cream flavors I’ve ever tasted. RIP Oatmeal Cookie Chunk and Clusterfluff!

ben and jerrys flavor graveyard

The Ben & Jerry’s graveyard is located at the company factory in Waterbury, Vermont. It’s pretty far out of the way, so you really have to be motivated to get here in person.

If you can’t make it to Vermont, no problem. Just scroll down to see all the discontinued flavors in the company’s history. Did you know they once had a pear flavor? And they once had a sweet potato pie flavored ice cream?

Chances are some of your favorites may be here! Let’s run down every single flavor in the Ben & Jerry’s flavor graveyard, as of 2024.

Table of Contents

Basics About Visiting the Ben & Jerry’s Factory in Waterbury, Vermont

Ben & Jerry’s, of course, is the famous ice cream company that began in 1978 and captured the public’s attention with flavors like Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia.

factory tour selfie

They’re known for their social activism, their environmental consciousness, the pun-heavy names of their ice cream flavors, and their annual free cone days at shops across the country.

Before presenting all of the discontinued B&J flavors, let’s answer a few basic questions about how you can visit the factory in Vermont and see the graveyard for yourself.

Where is the Ben & Jerry’s flavor graveyard?

The graveyard is located at the Ben & Jerry’s company factory at 1281 Waterbury-Stowe Rd, Waterbury Village Historic District, VT 05676.

Note – it’s not located at the company headquarters. The Ben & Jerry’s headquarters are in South Burlington, Vermont. The company factory is in Waterbury.

The graveyard is located in the rear of the factory parking lot. Follow the signs up a slight hill, past a playground, and you’ll spot the bright purple graveyard gate.

ice cream headstones

How much does it cost to visit the B&J graveyard?

You can visit the graveyard for free. But if you’d like to take the factory tour to see how the ice cream is made (and you should), that’ll cost $6 for adults and $5 for kids.

What hours is it open?

The B&J factory is open from 11 am to 6 pm Tuesday through Saturday. It’s closed Sunday and Monday.

How many flavors are in Ben & Jerry’s graveyard?

As of this writing, there are 44 flavors with headstones in the flavor graveyard. That number changes over time, as flavors are discontinued and new headstones have to be added to the graveyard.

What does the graveyard look like?

It looks like a literal graveyard, with stone markers for each flavor, although the headstones feature bright and colorful logos and epitaphs in the form of poems.

The graveyard has a striking purple gate at the entrance and a white picket fence surrounding it.

ben and jerrys flavor graveyard
Front gate of the Ben & Jerry’s flavor graveyard.

Is every discontinued Ben & Jerry’s flavor in the graveyard?

Nope! This was surprising to learn. There are actually tons of old flavors that, for whatever reason, have not been given a headstone and a spot in the flavor graveyard. Those include Mocha Walnut, Hazed & Confused, and Fred & Ginger (a tribute to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.)

Scroll to the end of the article for a list of more discontinued flavors that aren’t in the graveyard.

Are abandoned flavors ever brought back from the flavor graveyard?

Yes, occasionally! In 2022, Ben & Jerry’s resurrected Dublin Mudslide after a 15-year hiatus and removed it from the flavor graveyard.

Dublin Mudslide features Irish cream liqueur ice cream with chocolate chip cookies and a coffee fudge swirl. Yum! The flavor originally existed from 2005 to 2007.

All the Flavors Currently in the Ben & Jerry’s Flavor Graveyard

Let’s run down all the flavors currently on display in the Ben & Jerry’s flavor graveyard (“Our Dearly De-pinted”), one by one. I’ve personally tried many of these flavors. Some of them were among my favorite ice cream flavors of all-time. Some I had no idea had been discontinued!

For each flavor, we’ll give the official Ben & Jerry’s flavor description, followed by the silly and fun epitaph on the headstone in the graveyard.

Oatmeal Cookie Chunk (2004-2012)

Sweet cream cinnamon ice cream with oatmeal cookies & fudge chunks

oatmeal cookie chunk

Let’s start off with a bang, with my favorite ice cream flavor of all-time. That’s right, Oatmeal Cookie Chunk is the greatest ice cream flavor in the history of humankind! According to my taste buds, at least.

What made it so great? Start with a sweet cream cinnamon ice cream. That base is packed with flavor and unspeakably delicious. Then add in chocolate chunks and huge swaths of oatmeal cookie dough, and you have a flawless combination.

Backstory: My entire life, I used to wonder why cookie dough ice cream was just boring vanilla ice cream with tiny little unsatisfying balls of cookie dough tossed in. Why, I wondered, couldn’t they swirl in huge swaths of the cookie dough? Why couldn’t half the container be cookie dough swirls?

And then I discovered Ben & Jerry’s Oatmeal Cookie Chunk, and its robust cookie dough swaths. And my life was changed. Suddenly, anything was possible in the world of ice cream!

This was one of the longest-lasting flavors in the graveyard, remaining in stores for 8 years before it was discontinued.

The only reason I’m not depressed about its absence is that B&J now has a similar flavor, Oat of This Swirled, which features oatmeal cookie dough swirled into a brown sugar ice cream. It’s similar enough to give me that oatmeal cookie fix I need.

KaBerry KaBoom (2001)

Strawberry & blueberry ice creams with fudge-covered cracklin’ candy & a blueberry swirl

kaberry kaboom flavor

Yikes. It’s not hard to see why this one failed! Cracklin’ candies in ice cream? I could see that maybe working if done correctly. But covering the candy in chocolate is definitely not the way to do it. Imagine Nerds or Skittles covered in chocolate. Nobody wants that!

Also, strawberry and blueberry together is just way too sweet. I never got to try this flavor, but I can totally get why it didn’t survive even one full year.

Schweddy Balls (2011)

Vanilla ice cream with a hint of rum, loaded with fudge-covered rum & malt balls

schweddy balls ice cream

Only Ben and Jerry are crazy enough to conceive an ice cream flavor around a Saturday Night Live sketch from a decade earlier.

That would be the famous 1998 sketch featuring Alec Baldwin as Pete Schweddy, a baker whose “Schweddy balls” were a favorite holiday dessert.

Schweddy Balls was a limited edition holiday batch for 2011, so it was never expected to live forever. Rum balls in a vanilla ice cream doesn’t sound like a combination that could last for years anyway. It was just a novelty flavor.

You can see that someone left roses at this headstone. That’s just silly enough to be funny.

Dave Matthews Band’s Magic Brownies (2007-2011)

Black raspberry ice cream swirled with sweet cream ice cream & fudgy brownies

dave matthews band ben & jerrys ice cream

The Dave Matthews Band was one of the biggest bands in the world in the early 2000s, and they shared a similar worldview with Ben & Jerry’s. Hence, a collab was born.

Magic Brownies was actually the second Ben & Jerry’s flavor in honor of DMB. I distinctly remember the first, called One Sweet Whirled (after the DMB tune “One Sweet World”). That flavor arrived in 2002 and featured caramel and coffee ice creams with marshmallow swirls and coffee-flavored chocolate chips.

As a huge DMB fan, I was compelled to buy One Sweet Whirled, even though I don’t like coffee. It was decent, but only lasted until 2004.

Three years later, B&J decided to try another DMB flavor, this time with a raspberry kick. I don’t love raspberry in ice cream, so I never got around to trying the Magic Brownies.

Fresh Georgia Peach (1986-1991)

Vanilla ice cream with fresh Georgia peaches

ben jerrys graveyard peach

Here’s one of the oldest flavors in the graveyard. Georgia peach was created in 1986, and it was very simple. Just vanilla ice cream with peaches. That was enough to last for five years.

I absolutely love peach ice cream, and would’ve been all over this flavor if I’d had the chance, but it was before my ice cream-buying time. B&J later created a Willie Nelson Peach Cobbler flavor that added shortbread into the mix.

What a Cluster (aka Clusterfluff) (2011-2014)

Peanut butter ice cream with caramel cluster pieces, marshmallow swirls & peanut buttery swirls

clusterfluff ben jerrys

Here’s the other flavor in the Ben & Jerry’s flavor graveyard that I miss dearly. What a Cluster is another of my all-time fave ice cream flavors.

It’s basically peanut butter and marshmallow, which is an incredible combination, with the added sweetness and crunchy texture of caramel clusters. It was modeled after fluffernutter. I was so bummed when this flavor went away!

Interesting fact – this one was originally called Clusterfluff. That was a fun and slightly edgy play on words. And then shortly after, with no announcement or explanation, they changed it to the much more boring What a Cluster. Did Ben & Jerry’s succumb to consumer complaints about the name? Who knows, but that name change always bothered me.

Peanuts! Popcorn! (2000)

Caramel ice cream with white fudge-covered caramel popcorn, toffee-covered peanuts & a caramel swirl

peanuts popcorn ben and jerrys

Popcorn in ice cream? Gotta give kudos to Ben and Jerry for trying new things. But it didn’t quite work.

I have to say, the idea of peanuts and popcorn in ice cream doesn’t sound that appetizing initially. But when you read further, and realize that the popcorn was actually caramel popcorn, and that it was covered in white chocolate, and the peanuts were covered in toffee… that actually sounds tasty!

Evidently, customers didn’t think so, as it disappeared in 2000, the same year it hit the market.

Neapolitan Dynamite (2006-2010)

Cherry Garcia & Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice creams side by side

neapolitan dynamite - ben and jerrys flavor graveyard

I love that Ben & Jerry’s names flavors after rock bands, tv shows, and in this case, the Napoleon Dynamite movie. “Neapolitan” was the obvious direction to go with this flavor since it’s so close to “Napoleon.”

The problem is that people buy Ben & Jerry’s for the unusual and decadent flavors. Plain old neapolitan isn’t really going to excite the typical B&J buyer. The company understood that and changed the neapolitan formula.

Instead of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, Neapolitan Dynamite offered a pairing of Cherry Garcia and Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice creams instead. I never tried this one, but enough fans of the movie bought it that it hung around for four years.

Oh Pear (1997)

Fresh pear ice cream with a hint of almond and a light fudge swirl

ben & jerry's pear ice cream

One of the great mysteries of life for me is why there are so many peach-flavored foods and drinks, and so few pear-flavored ones. I love pear and never understood why there isn’t pear cobbler, pear-flavored soda, pear ice cream, pear yogurt, and all the rest.

Imagine my surprise upon learning that Ben & Jerry’s once produced a pear ice cream! But it was here for such a short time, I blinked and missed it.

Reading the description, though, I’m not sure how good it would’ve been. Ben & Jerry have this unfortunate compulsion to add chocolate to flavors that don’t need it (like Oatmeal Cookie Chunk.) And here we see that their pear ice cream actually had a fudge swirl. WTF, B & J?

I think the way to make a pear flavor work would’ve been to keep the mix-ins to a minimum. A few shaved almonds are fine, and maybe some cinnamon or brown sugar to punch it up a little. That’s all you need.

Holy Cannoli (1997-1998)

Creamy Ricotta and pistachio ice cream with chocolate-covered cannolis and roasted pistachio

holy cannoli flavor

I wonder if the reason Holy Cannoli never took off is that many people don’t know what cannolis are. It’s not a common dessert in most parts of the country.

The cannoli is a delicious Italian pastry stuffed with a creamy filling. I actually just had my first cannoli recently at Mike’s Pastry in the Cambridge neighborhood of Boston.

I’d totally buy Ben & Jerry’s Holy Cannoli if it came out today, but I never tried it back in the day.

The epitaph speculates that perhaps people were turned off by the pistachios, but I’m not so sure about that. Ben & Jerry’s has a Pistachio flavor that is still going strong.

I think that cannolis were just too unfamiliar, or the idea of Ricotta cheese in an ice cream didn’t sound appetizing enough.

Cake Batter (2008-2016)

Yellow cake batter ice cream with a chocolate frosting swirl

cake batter ice cream

Birthday cake ice cream has become such a popular and common flavor, you have to wonder how Ben & Jerry’s Cake Batter didn’t work.

But a glimpse at the ingredient list shows that there’s no actual cake in there – just ice cream made to taste like cake batter. There aren’t even any rainbow sprinkles – just a swirl of chocolate frosting.

The company did later make an actual “Birthday Cake” flavor that was more in tune with the kind of cake ice creams people are craving these days.

Boston Cream Pie (2010-2016)

Boston Cream Pie ice cream with yellow cake pieces, fudge flakes, and swirls of pastry cream

boston cream pie flavor graveyard

Here’s another flavor I remember trying and loving. A traditional Boston Cream Pie is delicious, and this one captured its essence successfully, with the fudge and the pasty cream swirl.

Sad to see this one go, but at least it had a respectable six-year run!

UPDATE: Last year, Ben & Jerry’s released Bossin’ Cream Pie, an updated version of this flavor. It’s basically the same, except the layer of chocolate and chips are right on the top, rather than swirled in. I tried it and sadly didn’t love it, because the chocolate is hard and crunchy, rather than smooth and soft, as it is on the actual pie itself.

Wild Maine Blueberry (1992-1993)

Blueberry ice cream with Maine blueberry puree and wild Maine blueberries

blueberry ice cream

Maybe someone somewhere can do a study to understand why strawberry ice cream is so successful, but blueberry ice cream just never works.

In the meantime, let’s mourn the loss of Wild Maine Blueberry ice cream. This was a rare Ben & Jerry’s offering that featured a fruit puree as part of the blend. We haven’t really seen other purees since then, so evidently customers made their voices heard that it wasn’t a winning formula.

Peanut Butter Me Up (2002-2003)

A peanut butter caramel core surrounded by peanut butter & chocolate ice creams with fudge chips

peanut butter me up ben jerry

A peanut butter flavor that didn’t sell? How is that possible?! It sounds especially delicious – peanut butter and chocolate ice creams with a peanut butter caramel core.

Maybe back in 2002, Ben & Jerry’s hadn’t yet mastered the “core” ice cream techniques. These days, they have lots of flavors with a core filling, but they didn’t have many two decades ago. In fact, this was one of the first three “core” ice creams the company created, which all debuted in 2002. Perhaps consumers weren’t yet ready for that type of dairy innovation.

Or maybe the caramel part was a turnoff. Caramel really doesn’t belong here. Ben and Jerry should hire someone to edit their flavor combinations before they hit the market!

Chocolate Comfort (1999)

Chocolate truffle ice low fat ice cream swirled with white chocolate low fat ice cream

chocolate comfort

You have to really screw something up to create a chocolate-flavored ice cream that people don’t like. So how did Ben & Jerry do it?

Well, the main crime was attempting a low-fat ice cream. If you’ve ever checked the label on a pint of Ben & Jerry’s you know that it’s absolutely loaded with calories and fat. We just accept that as the tradeoff for all that flavor.

This was an attempt to find out if there was a market for a lower-fat flavor, and apparently there was not. But I also think that making it a “chocolate truffle” flavor was a bad idea. I know truffles are all the rage, but a lot of us just don’t like truffle flavor and would never buy a flavor like this.

Miz Jelena’s Sweet Potato Pie (1992-1993)

Swirls of sweet potato pie filling and cinnamon pieces in slightly spicy sweet potato pie ice cream

sweet potato pie ice cream

Ok, I’m reallllly curious to know what sweet potato ice cream tastes like! I’ve never seen such a flavor anywhere. Perhaps there’s a reason for that. If B&J couldn’t make it work, maybe no one can.

Who is Miz Jelena, by the way? I have no idea. I found a company called “Miz Jelena’s Homemade Southern Cookin'” that incorporated in 1992, the same year this ice cream hit the market, so perhaps there was a connection. Maybe Ben & Jerry had plans to create a whole line of southern-themed Miz Jelena ice creams if this one worked out. Alas, it did not.

Turtle Soup (2006-2010)

Vanilla ice cream with fudge and caramel cashews & a caramel swirl

turtle soup ice cream

Turtle Soup survived for four years, but I’ll be honest: I could never get past the name. “Turtle soup” conjures up images of a southern stew with veggies and turtle bits. The name is so off-putting. I cringe every time I read it.

Still, if the ice cream had featured lots of delicious mix-ins, I would’ve overlooked the name and given it a try. But it was literally just vanilla ice cream with nuts, fudge, and caramel. It’s hard to imagine a less inventive combination.

Pina Colada (2013)

Coconut ice cream with pineapple chunks

pina colada - ben & jerry's graveyard

Pineapple chunks mixed into coconut ice cream? Sign me up! Pina Colada ice cream was absolutely delicious. I wish this flavor had become a staple of the Ben & Jerry’s product line, but they chose to make it a Limited Batch, available only during summer 2013.

Interesting fact: I loved this ice cream during its brief run. When it went off the market, I was forced to look around to find other brands that had similar flavors. I finally located Haagen Dazs’ Pineapple Coconut, which has remained one of my favorites for the past several years.

So Ben & Jerry inadvertently created more business for their rival, by getting me addicted to a flavor and then immediately pulling it off the market. That’s probably not what they had in mind!

P.S. Pineapple lovers may want to check out my article about visiting the Dole Plantation in Hawaii.

Makin’ Whoopie Pie (2002-2003)

Chocolate ice cream with a classic Whoopie Pie mixture of marshmallow & devil’s food cookies

makin whoopie pie ice cream

Whoopie Pies are a popular snack that are sorta like giant, softer versions of Oreos. They’re similar to Moon Pies, the beloved product of Chattanooga, Tennessee. But Whoopie Pies tend to be softer and feature chocolate, while Moon Pies can have various flavors.

Ben and Jerry chose to give their Whoopie Pie ice cream a clever name that recalls the Newlywed Game. And they opted to feature a chocolate ice cream base with marshmallow and devil’s food cookies swirled in. That sounds tasty! Every ice cream I’ve ever tried that features marshmallow has been delicious. I wish I’d gotten a chance to try this one.

Chocolate Peppermint Crunch (2013-2016)

Chocolate ice cream with peppermint & fudge swirls and mint chocolate cookie balls

chocolate peppermint crunch

Ok, here’s another abandoned Ben & Jerry’s flavor that sounds really good. I don’t ever remember seeing it in stores, but Chocolate Peppermint Crunch had a solid four-year run.

Mint chocolate chip ice cream is everywhere, but Chocolate Peppermint is more unique and sounds more delicious. Hopefully this one will be resurrected and find itself back in stores someday!

Honey I’m Home (2002)

Honey vanilla ice cream & fudge-covered honeycomb candy nuggets

honey i'm home ice cream - ben & jerry flavor graveyard

Why isn’t honey a more common ice cream ingredient? Honey I’m Home sounds positively mouthwatering! Honey vanilla ice cream… ok, right there I’m interested. Add in fudge-covered honeycomb candy nuggets, and I can’t imagine why everyone didn’t love this flavor.

Honey I’m Home may reside in the Ben & Jerry’s graveyard, but the company recently created a flavor called Home Sweet Honeycomb, which is almost the exact same recipe. Sadly, it’s only available in the UK as of now.

Aloha Macadamia (2001-2002)

Rich milk chocolate cashew Brazil-nut butter ice cream with macadamia nuts covered in white & dark fudge and a milk chocolately swirl

aloha macadamia

Macadamia nuts are awesome, but this flavor just seems way too convoluted to even make sense. Look at the first ingredient on the list: “Rich milk chocolate cashew Brazil-nut butter ice cream.” All of that is one ingredient? It’s ice cream that tastes like chocolate, cashews, and nut butter?

If consumers can’t make sense of what the flavor is, they’re certainly not going to buy it. I do think this might’ve been a tasty flavor though. Macadamia nuts covered in white and dark fudge sounds wondrous.

That’s My Jam (2014-2015)

Raspberry and chocolate ice creams with chocolately chunks & a raspberry core

that's my jam raspberry ice cream

Raspberry is another flavor that just doesn’t seem to work in most ice creams. Especially in the case of That’s My Jam, as the entire core of the pint is raspberry. You have to really like that particular berry to enjoy this.

Perhaps Ben and Jerry should wave the white flag, and forever stop trying to work raspberry into a flavor that people will actually buy.

Vermonty Python (2006-2008)

Coffee liqueur ice cream with a chocolate cookie crumb swirl and fudge cows

vermonty python ice cream flavor

Ooh, Vermonty Python (named, of course, for the iconic British comedy troupe Monty Python) sounds like it would have been a really good ice cream. I’ve come around over the years to enjoying coffee-flavored ice cream.

This one takes the coffee and adds in chocolate cookie crumbs. More ice creams should feature cookie crumbs! That’s another winning ingredient. As for the “fudge cows,” well, those are just weird. They were evidently little pieces of fudge shaped like cows. I guess they capture the bizarre vibe of Monty Python, so it all makes sense.

Mission to Marzipan (2009-2010)

Sweet cream ice cream with almond cookies & a marzipan swirl

mission to marzipan ben & jerry's flavor graveyard

Mission to Marzipan is a cool-sounding name. But understanding this flavor requires actually knowing what marzipan is. I didn’t know marzipan was actually a real thing. I assumed it was a silly word made up by Ben and Jerry.

Turns out that marzipan is a confection made from sugar, honey, and ground almonds. And this pint mixes a marzipan swirl into a sweet cream ice cream. Sweet cream is eternally one of the best ice cream flavors. This combination was great!

Sugar Plum (1989-1990)

Plum ice cream with a caramel swirl

sugar plum ice cream

There was a plum ice cream? Seriously? There was a plum ice cream? I love strange flavors, and this one has to be one of the strangest. You never see plum-flavored anything.

Sugar Plum ice cream hit stores in 1989, way before I was buying ice cream. I was a kid and my family was buying gallon containers of generic vanilla back then, so I sadly had no opportunity to give the plum variety a shot. If you ever tried Sugar Plum, please leave a comment letting us know how it was!

Chocolate Almond Fudge Chip (1993-1996, 1998-1999, 2001-2006)

Coconut ice cream with fudge chips & roasted almonds

coconut almond fudge chip

Chocolate Almond Fudge Chip is the flavor that seemingly never dies. It was sent to the graveyard in 1996, brought back two years later, re-graveyarded in 1999, brought back once more two years later, and finally sent back to the graveyard in 2006.

It’s easy to see why this flavor keeps returning. We all know that coconut and chocolate are a proven combo. I appreciate that B&J used a coconut ice cream base with chocolate mixed in, as opposed to a chocolate base with coconut mixed in. Going all-in on coconut is never a bad idea!

Tennessee Mud (1988-1989)

Coffee ice cream with Amaretto, Jack Daniels Tennessee whiskey, and roasted slivered almonds

tennessee mud flavor

Booze! Not many Ben & Jerry’s ice creams contain liquor, but Tennessee Mud sure did. It mixed Jack Daniels and Amaretto into a coffee-flavored ice cream base.

I personally don’t love boozy ice creams, and I guess the public didn’t go for it, either. You also have to figure that adding Jack Daniels into the mix was cost-prohibitive. They probably weren’t making as much profit from each pint of Tennessee Mud as they were from other flavors, because that whiskey ain’t cheap.

Creme Brulee (2007-2012)

Sweet custard ice cream with a caramelized sugar swirl

creme brulee ice cream

I remember buying the Creme Brulee flavor, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what creme brulee was. The description won me over though. A sweet custard ice cream (that’s different!) with a caramelized sugar swirl? It sounded fantastic. And it was.

I don’t know how you go about adding caramelized sugar into an ice cream, but I sure hope Ben and Jerry try it again sometime. This flavor lasted five years, which was a nice run.

Fossil Fuel (2005-2010)

Sweet cream ice cream with chocolate cookie pieces, fudge dinosaurs, and a fudge swirl

fossil fuel ice cream

Fossil Fuel was a fairly simple combination – sweet cream ice cream with chocolate and fudge. But that’s a really appealing pairing. That explains why the flavor survived for five years.

This flavor allowed the company to highlight the important issue of renewable energy. When they retired Fossil Fuel, Ben and Jerry said, “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!”

The Wich (2004-2006)

Chewy chocolate chunk cookies with vanilla & chocolately chip ice cream

the wich flavor

The Wich was the B&J attempt to recreate the magic of an ice cream sandwich. Chewy cookies mixed into an ice cream is a great idea, but the flavor was still too basic to last.

Once the company started selling proper ice cream sandwiches, that kinda rendered The Wich unnecessary.

Dastardly Mash (1979-1991)

Chocolate ice cream with pecans, almonds, raisins & chocolate chips

dastardly mash ben jerry

Here’s another really old one. Dastardly Mash was created in 1979 and lasted more than a decade. The epitaph poem on its headstone speculates that the raisins may have caused its demise.

That sounds about right! Raisins in ice cream are rare. Their sweet and chewy texture conflicts with the creamy goodness of the ice cream. It would be like putting Skittles or jelly beans in ice cream.

Interestingly, though, I always wondered why my beloved Oatmeal Cookie Chunk didn’t have raisins. If you’re going to have raisins in any ice cream, oatmeal cookie is the place for it! It always struck me as odd that the oatmeal ice cream had chocolate chips instead.

Cool Britannia (1989-1990)

Vanilla ice cream with strawberries and fudge-covered shortbread

cool britannia ice cream

Cool Britannia wasn’t quite cool enough, as it only lasted two years. Strawberries and shortbread do indeed sound like a good pairing.

But again, why add fudge to the mix? This was another flavor where B&J added chocolate unnecessarily, resulting in an inferior flavor.

Economic Crunch (1987)

Vanilla ice cream with chocolate-covered almonds, pecans and walnuts

economic crunch ben & jerrys flavor graveyard

Economic Crunch has to be one of the weirdest ideas Ben & Jerry ever had. After the October 1987 stock market crash, they whipped up this vanilla + nuts concoction and personally delivered it to stock brokers on Wall Street in New York City to cheer them up.

But a stock market crash is such a bizarre thing to commemorate with an ice cream. By that logic, why not create a Pearl Harbor flavor?

Wavy Gravy (1992-2001)

Caramel and cashew Brazil nut ice cream with a chocolate hazelnut fudge swirl & roasted almonds

wavy gravy ice cream

Wavy Gravy is a famous hippie best-known for his appearance at Woodstock. Ben approached him in San Francisco in 1991 with the idea of naming an ice cream after him.

After some trial and error, they settled on a caramel and cashew Brazil nut ice cream with almonds and hazelnut. That’s a really complex recipe. Perhaps there was too much going on for just one pint. But the flavor lasted for 8 years.

Wavy Gravy ice cream was briefly resurrected in 2005 as the winner of a fan vote, and was again available at scoop shops across the country for a short time.

Bovinity Divinity (1998-2001)

Milk chocolate ice cream and white fudge cows swirled with white chocolate ice cream and dark chocolate cows

bovinity divinity

Ben and Jerry have quite a few flavors with white chocolate in the flavor graveyard. I’ve always loved white chocolate, but its flavor can be a bit too sweet when it’s mixed into an ice cream. I wonder if that’s what happened with Bovinity Divinity.

This one mixed white and milk chocolate ice creams and cows. Ultimately, it’s just different types of chocolate, so I’m guessing it might not have been creative enough to satisfy the public.

White Russian (1986-1996)

Coffee ice cream with Kahlua coffee liqueur

white russian ben and jerry

Ben & Jerry sure love to create ice creams based around liquor. This one was modeled after the White Russian and features Kahlua coffee liqueur with coffee ice cream.

Is that too much coffee? Perhaps. The flavor survived for a full decade though, so lots of people enjoyed it. Hmm… now I’m in the mood to order a White Russian at the bar!

Rainforest Crunch (1989-1999)

Vanilla ice cream with a cashew and Brazil-nut butter crunch

rainforest crunch

In 1989, not as many people were paying attention to the plight of the rainforests, so Ben & Jerry tried to spotlight the issues with a new flavor called Rainforest Crunch.

The flavor was a little too simple for my taste – just vanilla ice cream with crunchy nuts. But at least it was for a good cause.

This is Nuts (2001-2002)

A nutty mix of chocolate & pistachio ice creams with fudge-covered almonds & lightly-roasted pistachios

ben jerry this is nuts

The name This is Nuts makes it sound as though this flavor has several different types of nuts mixed in. But it’s actually just pistachios and almonds, with fudge and chocolate ice cream.

I personally love pistachios and would’ve enjoyed this flavor. But I can see why the general public wouldn’t have been blown away. Hey, at least Ben & Jerry’s Pistachio flavor is still on the market!

Urban Jumble (2000-2001)

Coconut Almond Fudge Chip meets New York Super Fudge Chunk – a swirling safari of chocolate ice cream & coconut ice cream mixed with white and dark chocolatey chunks, pecans, and roasted almonds

urban jumble ice cream

Urban Jumble was one of the first Ben & Jerry’s pints which mixed two separate flavors together. In this case, Coconut Almond Fudge Chip was paired with New York Super Fudge Chunk.

Both flavors are good on their own. But I’ve never been a fan of these pairings. I’d rather have a full pint of the flavors I like instead of splitting a pint between two flavors.

Ethan Almond (1988)

Vanilla ice cream with chocolate-covered almonds

ethan almond flavor

Ethan Almond has to get the prize for simplest flavor in the history of Ben & Jerry’s. Just vanilla with almonds covered in chocolate.

If you’re wondering about the strange name, Ethan Almond was a tribute to Ethan Allen, a Revolutionary War patriot and early leader of Vermont. Most people have never heard of him, so this flavor may have been doomed from the start.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Frozen Yogurt (1994-2001)

Vanilla frozen yogurt with gobs of chocolate chip cookie dough

cookie dough frozen yogurt

I don’t think most people go to Ben & Jerry’s when they want frozen yogurt. This one included cookie dough and was moderately successful, lasting for 7 years.

Purple Passion Fruit Sorbet (1996-2001)

Swirls of raspberry-blackberry and passion fruit sorbet with other natural flavors

purple passion fruit sorbet

I don’t think most people go to Ben & Jerry’s when they want sorbet, either. This was at least a creative flavor design, mixing raspberry, blackberry, and passion fruit.

Devil’s Food Chocolate Sorbet (1996-2001)

Swirls of light chocolate & dark chocolate sorbet

devil's food chocolate sorbet

Devil’s food is one of the richest flavors around, but how would it taste in sorbet form? I never got to find out. Devil’s Food Chocolate Sorbet stuck around for five years before leaving us in 2001, the same year many other flavors joined the graveyard.

Discontinued Ben & Jerry’s Flavors That Aren’t in the Graveyard

Ben & Jerry’s makes it seem as though all of the abandoned flavors are here in the graveyard. But I was surprised to learn there are dozens of discontinued flavors which don’t have headstones like the others.

Here’s a selection of some of the discontinued Ben & Jerry’s flavors you won’t see in the flavor graveyard:

Brownie Batter. (Brownie batter ice cream with a rich brownie batter swirl) Ahhh, this brings back memories. Brownie Batter ice cream was so delicious! Why’d they have to stop production? It lasted from 2003 to 2011. I’m still upset that Ben and Jerry gave up on this one. But at least there’s a Brownie Batter Core ice cream still on the market.

Festivus. (Brown sugar cinnamon ice cream with gingerbread cookies & a ginger-caramel swirl) This Seinfeld-themed flavor – tagline “The flavor for the rest of us” – was a Limited Edition batch during the holiday seasons of 2000 and 2001. It later reappeared under two different names: Gingerbread Cookie (2004) and Gingersnap (2009.)

Fred & Ginger. (Ginger ice cream with chocolate bowties) This flavor was created in honor of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, legendary dance and film partners. Unfortunately, it was massively unpopular, and 45 of the 47 scoop shops that carried it did not reorder. Ginger is just a weird flavor for an ice cream, so it was a clever concept, but a bad ice cream. It was here and gone in 1988.

ben and jerrys factory tour vermont

Peanut Butter & Jelly. (Peanut butter ice cream with peanut butter bits and strawberry jelly swirl) PB&J is such an interesting idea for an ice cream flavor. But there’s a reason why you never see jelly in ice creams from any brand. This was lasted from 1989 to 1990. This flavor used to have a headstone in the graveyard, but for some reason it was removed.

Mocha Walnut. (Mocha ice cream with walnuts) Available only during 1981, this was Ben & Jerry’s worst-selling flavor of all-time. That especially disappointed Ben, who called it his personal favorite flavor. Perhaps the American public just wasn’t ready for a coffee-flavored ice cream in the early ’80s.

Coconutterly Fair. (Chocolate ice cream with coconut caramel swirls & a chocolately-covered coconut caramel crunch) Coconutterly Fair, served up from 2011 to 2012, had a name that didn’t make much sense, and a flavor profile that wasn’t different enough from some other coconut ice creams Ben and Jerry already had.

Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road. (Chocolate ice cream, peanut butter cookie dough, brickle candy pieces, and white chocolately chunks) In 2008, the company created an Elton John-themed flavor in honor of Sir Elton’s first-ever concert in Vermont. This Limited Batch was off store shelves by 2009, but it was good while it lasted.

Willie Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler. (Peach ice cream with cinnamon-sugar shortbread pieces and a peach swirl) Ooh, I love me some cobbler! This Willie Nelson-inspired flavor sounds positively delightful.

Run Burgundy’s Scotchy Scotch Scotch. (Butterscotch ice cream with butterscotch swirls) A Ron Burgundy-themed ice cream! This heavy butterscotch flavor honored the famous Will Ferrell newscaster character. That’s a lot of butterscotch, though.

Tuskegee Chunk. (Peanut butter ice cream with chocolate chunks) It’s just peanut butter and chocolate! Like a Reese’s cup! How could Tuskegee Chunk have failed? This one remains a mystery. It was featured from 1989 to 1990.

Cow Power. (Sweet cream ice cream with chocolate cookie pieces, dark chocolatey cows & a chocolate fudge swirl) Cow Power had a lot of cream and a lot of chocolate, but it was pretty basic. This was a limited batch created only for 2012.

Fudge Central. (A soft fudge truffle core surrounded by chocolate & vanilla ice creams with white and dark fudge chips) Fudge Central was one of the three initial “core” ice creams Ben & Jerry created in 2002, along with Peanut Butter Me Up (which appears in the graveyard) and Karamel Sutra (which is still sold today.) Fudge Central had a unique fudge truffle core, but only lasted until 2005.

Black & Tan. (Cream stout ice cream swirled with chocolate ice cream) Created in 2006, this flavor was designed to capture the essence of the UK beverage Black & Tan, which blends a pale ale and a dark beer. But some Irish consumers reminded Ben and Jerry that Black & Tan was also the name of the notoriously aggressive police force recruited during the Irish War of Independence. B&J apologized and quickly did away with the flavor.

discontinued flavors

Hazed & Confused Core. (Chocolate & hazelnut ice creams with fudge chips and a hazelnut fudge core) The Hazed & Confused Core flavor lasted only from 2014 to 2015. It was the third failed Ben & Jerry’s hazelnut flavor, following Chocolate Hazelnut Swirl (1988-1991) and Coffee Hazelnut Swirl (2000.)

Orange & Cream. (Sweet Orange ice cream with swirls of vanilla ice cream) Take an orange creamsicle, remove the stick, and pack it in a pint, and you have Orange & Cream. I would love this flavor, so I’m not sure why it didn’t succeed!

Chocolate Orange Fudge. (Chocolate fudge ice cream infused with orange liqueur) I don’t know about the combination of chocolate and orange. It doesn’t sound very appealing. Apparently I’m in the majority with this opinion.

Most of the 2Twisted flavors. In the early 2000s, Ben and Jerry decided to create a series of 2Twisted ice creams, which were basically two different flavors packed together in the same pint.

While two of these offerings remain on the market (Half Baked and Everything But the…), most of them are long gone. That includes Monkey Wrench (Chunky Monkey + Peanut Butter Cup), Entangled Mints (Mint Chocolate Cookie + Marble Mint Chunk), and Pulp Addiction (Chocolate Orange Fudge + Orange & Cream.)

There are many more abandoned flavors. In addition to all the flavors listed above, the official Ben & Jerry’s site lists the following flavors as discontinued: Apricot, Banana Walnut, Blond Brownie Sundae, Cantaloupe, Cold Brew Caramel Latte Ice Cream, Egg Nog, Grapefruit Ice, Heath Bar Crunch, Ice Tea Ginseng, Lemon Meringue, Malted Milk Ball, Mango, Maple Grape Nut, Pecan Sticky Buns, Pink Lemonade, Rootbeer Float My Boat, Smores, and Snickerdoodle Cookie.

That’s quite a list! To see the full list of abandoned flavors, click here and open the dropdown menu labeled “Which flavor do you wish we’d bring back?” You’ll see more than 100 discontinued flavors there!

The Ben & Jerry’s Factory Tour

how many pints tall are you

Since the flavor graveyard is located on the grounds of the Ben & Jerry’s factory, let’s end with some info about the factory tour itself.

The tour takes visitors through a viewing window above the manufacturing room. You can see the flavors being produced and mixed in large tanks. The windows are small, and the time is brief, so don’t expect to see too much.

There’s also a video presentation describing the history of the company, and a gift shop with all sorts of goodies, including souvenirs and pints of various flavors.

ben jerry gift shop

I felt the tour was worth the $6, even if it was somewhat short. The tour ends with a free sample of a flavor of the day. They tried to fool people with this fake sign stating that today’s flavor was “Broccoli Cheddar Chunk.”

broccoli cheddar ice cream

Then the tour guide flipped over the sign to reveal the actual flavor of the day, Strawberry Cheesecake. But many of us were bummed that there wasn’t really a Broccoli Cheddar flavor we could try. Hearing Strawberry Cheesecake after that was honestly a letdown.

There’s also a scoop shop on the premises. I got a cup of Marshmallow Sky, because I’d never heard of that flavor before.

It’s marshmallow ice cream with marshmallow swirl and cookie dough chunks. Plus it has an eye-catching sky blue color. So delicious!

marshmallow sky ice cream

And that’s it for my visit to the Ben & Jerry’s graveyard in Vermont! It’s a must-visit on any New England road trip through Vermont and New Hampshire.

In slightly-related news I’ve blogged about a surprising number of real graveyards, including Andy Warhol’s grave in Pittsburgh, Marilyn Monroe’s grave in Los Angeles, and the Granary Cemetery in Boston.

What’s your favorite ice cream in the Ben & Jerry’s flavor graveyard?