17 Of The Shortest-Lived Ben & Jerry's Flavors

Beginning in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont, Ben & Jerry's grew from a single scoop shop into one of the most recognizable ice cream brands in the world. The amusingly-named pints filled with delicious ice cream that begs customers to grab a spoon is legendary, and the company has further endeared itself by supporting worthwhile causes and using thoughtfully produced ingredients, like Fairtrade cocoa.

Since Ben & Jerry's has existed for almost 60 years, it's seen its fair share of flavors come and go. In keeping with consumers' rising trends and appetites, it's expanded its offerings to include plenty of dairy-free and gluten-free flavors as well as partnering with celebrities to create limited-edition ice creams or flavors designed to raise money for charities.

With the successes, however, comes some pitfalls, too. After all, with dozens and dozens of flavors being churned out, they can't all be winners, right? In contrast to beloved faves like Half-Baked and Cherry Garcia, these short-lived scoops melted down in the face of underwhelming customer demand.

That's My Jam was a flavor within the Core series, and it featured raspberry and chocolate ice creams mixed with chocolatey chunks and wrapped around a raspberry jam core. If the brand hadn't learned that customers weren't a fan of jam in their ice cream before 2014, it had to deal with another strike against the sweet stuff when this flavor was discontinued in 2015.

Now, you would really have to be a fan of fruit and chocolate to enjoy this one and, as you can probably tell from most of Ben & Jerry's current ice cream flavor lineup, that doesn't happen often. At least, not when it comes to ice cream. While we like chocolate-covered strawberries and raspberry chocolate bars as much as the next person, mixing them into ice cream isn't always a guaranteed hit.

If you've ever wanted to enjoy a Mounds bar as an ice cream and added some caramel to it, you might have loved the strangely-named Coconutterly Fair from Ben & Jerry's. Released in 2011, this flavor featured chocolate ice cream with coconut caramel swirls and a chocolate-covered coconut caramel crunch. It was texturally interesting (and made with Fairtrade chocolate to boot), but customers simply didn't line up to nab this flavor.

On the U.K. version of the Ben & Jerry's website, this flavor from the Graveyard is one of the most-missed, being that it lasted a mere year before it was removed from store freezers. For those who want to try something similar, pick up a pint of Seven-Layer Coconut Bar, one of Ben & Jerry's non-dairy flavors. This one features a coconut non-dairy ice cream with fudge chunks, walnuts, and swirls of graham cracker and caramel.

Paying homage to the dairy darlings that provide the base for so many of the flavors, Ben & Jerry's decided to introduce a flavor that trained the spotlight on cows: Cow Power. Featured prominently on many of their pints, Ben & Jerry's mascot, Woody, got her chance to shine with this limited-edition flavor.

Released in 2010, Cow Power was a sweet cream ice cream with chocolate cookie pieces, dark chocolatey cows, and a chocolate fudge swirl. The ice cream flavor had a good cause behind it, too, as part of the company's "Supporting Better Dairy" campaign. The campaign was a joint initiative with two NGOs, Compassion in World Farming and the World Society for the Protection of Animals. The flavor only lasted until 2011, being that it was a limited run, but it certainly won't be the last time we see Ben & Jerry's use its ice cream in pursuit of a good cause.

Consider this flavor a bit more sophisticated than the usual scoops churned out by Ben & Jerry's, which tends to be a fan of going extremely extra when it comes to mix-ins. Mission to Marzipan was originally released in 2009 and was a sweet cream ice cream mixed with almond cookies and a marzipan swirl. For those who don't know what marzipan is, it's a paste made from finely ground almonds. So it's pretty safe to say that you'd have to be a big fan of the nut to like this flavor.

Unfortunately, doing something to almonds rather than simply covering them in chocolate and throwing them into ice cream was kind of confusing to customers, who did not show up for this flavor. It was sort of a love-it-or-hate it flavor. The polarizing opinions on this ice cream is ultimately what led to its downfall, and Mission to Marzipan ended up crash-landing in 2010.

A popular beer cocktail that layers a pale ale over dark beer like a stout, Ben & Jerry's thought it had a hit when it made its Black & Tan ice cream in 2006. The flavor swirled a cream stout ice cream with a chocolate ice cream and it looked like it had the makings of a slam dunk — that is, until Ben & Jerry's were informed that the phrase "black and tan" was originally a nickname for a particularly brutal British militia force that operated during the Irish war of independence.

In a statement from the ice cream company, a spokesperson said per NBC, "Any reference on our part to the British Army unit was absolutely unintentional and no ill-will was ever intended." The flavor was discontinued the same year it was released, with fervent apologies from the brand. "Ben & Jerry's is all about peace and love," the spokesperson added.

The Core lineup of Ben & Jerry's is a huge hit, offering ice cream excavators a treasure trove of deliciousness. There are currently five flavors in the Classic Cores lineup, from Boom Chocolatta which has a chocolate cookie core to Salted Caramel, which has, naturally, a salted caramel core. There are even three non-dairy options for Core fans, proving that Ben & Jerry's knows when it has a hit on its hands.

In 2002, however, the Core concept didn't seem to resonate with customers. That was the year the ice cream company introduced Peanut Butter Me Up, which featured chocolate and peanut butter ice creams with fudge chips that surrounded a peanut butter caramel core. While it sounded delicious, the flavor wasn't a hit, and disappeared in 2003. In addition to the use of the core, Ben & Jerry's liked another thing about this flavor: the name, which it reused for a different ice cream in 2013.

Customers said "aloha" once to Ben & Jerry's Aloha Macadamia flavor in 2001, and then said aloha again when it was added to the Flavor Graveyard in 2002. This ice cream was chock-full of nuts, from the milk chocolate-cashew-Brazil nut butter ice cream base to white and dark fudge-covered macadamia nuts, finished with a milk chocolatey swirl.

Perhaps the flavor was just too nutty for customers' taste buds, or maybe they felt the blend of chocolates to be confusing. Or maybe they simply preferred their macadamia nuts in cookie form, instead. Ben & Jerry's assumed that exotic nuts just weren't its customers' style. Whatever the reason this flavor was "lei'd" to rest, never to be trotted out for scoops or pints again.

Judging from the name alone, you'd be forgiven if you thought this flavor was chock full of every nut under the sun. In reality, this flavor contained just two: pistachio and almond. This is Nuts was released in 2001 and made from chocolate and pistachio ice creams mixed with fudge-covered almonds and roasted pistachios.

Now, pistachios and almonds are pretty popular in the nut world. They're roasty, toasty, and pair extremely well with ice cream, as plenty of existing Ben & Jerry's flavors can attest to. This is Nuts was actually a combination of two flavors as part of its 2 Twisted series, which paired up complementary flavors in one swirled pint. This version blended together Pistachio Pistachio (which is still available) and Chocolate Almond (which isn't). If you're looking to recreated This is Nuts – which was discontinued in 2002 – but really want to amp up the nut factor, grab a scoop each of Pistachio Pistachio and New York Super Fudge Chunk and dig in.

Talk about a bomb. Released in 2001, Ben & Jerry's Kaberry Kaboom didn't even last the full year. This flavor swirled together strawberry and blueberry ice creams, then added white fudge-covered crackling candy (basically Pop Rocks) and a blueberry swirl.

Blueberry and strawberry are a delicious combo, and we know that even crackling candy works well in ice cream, so long as it retains its crackly factor and doesn't melt down into a dull, sugary sludge. Where we think Ben & Jerry's went wrong, however, was covering the candy in white fudge. While it properly helps to keep the crackling candy from dissolving in the ice cream, it would've added some heaviness to the tongue and the ice cream itself. It's not really a surprise, then, that Kaberry Kaboom ended up fizzling out.

Another member of the 2 Twisted lineup was Urban Jumble, which made its debut at the turn of the 21st century. Like This is Nuts, Urban Jumble combined two flavors into one pint. In this case, it was Coconut Almond Fudge Chip and New York Super Fudge Chunk. The result was a flavor made from chocolate and coconut ice creams swirled with white and dark chocolatey chunks, pecans, and roasted almonds. Was it maybe too much for customers' palates? It seems so, as Urban Jumble was given the boot by 2001.

While Urban Jumble and This is Nuts were two mixed-up flavors from the 2 Twisted series that didn't make it to permanent status, a couple actually did: Half-Baked began its delicious life as a part of the 2 Twisted crew, blending Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Chocolate Fudge Brownie flavors. Another permanent resident is Everything But The..., which was originally Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch and New York Super Fudge Chunk.

Bringing the movie theater to your ice cream pint, it was the release of Peanuts! Popcorn! Debuting in 2000, this creation was a favorite of Flavor Guru Eric Fredette, who developed it. It featured a caramel ice cream with white fudge-covered caramel popcorn, toffee-covered peanuts, and a caramel swirl. According to Ben & Jerry's, the flavor was meant to mimic a Cracker Jack box, that beloved ballpark snack that featured caramel popcorn and peanuts in a striped box, with a tiny toy prize inside.

Peanuts! Popcorn! sounded like it was poised to be a hit. It had a delicious flavor profile and was filled with the kind of excavator-y texture that Ben & Jerry's thrives on. Unfortunately, there was a fatal flaw in the ballpark-inspired scoop: the popcorn. According to Fredette, the white fudge couldn't properly coat the popcorn, leading to soggy popcorn that was anything but tasty. "Once you lose the crunch of the popcorn, you lose the moment, you lose the nostalgia," Fredette said. The flavor was discontinued after only a few months.

Who doesn't love settling on the couch with a pint of ice cream and drowning their sorrows in scoops of melty goodness? Long before Halo Top was reigning supreme as the low-fat, low-calorie frozen dessert of choice, Ben & Jerry's was riding the low-fat wave of products that was so popular in the 1990s when it created its Chocolate Comfort flavor.

This ice cream swirled a low-fat chocolate truffle ice cream with a low-fat white chocolate ice cream in a flavor that seemed pretty simple — perhaps too simple. The same year it was released (1999) was also the year it was discontinued. For those who are still looking for something sweet to while away the evening, Ben & Jerry's has a similarly named — but more decadent — flavor: Chocolate Therapy. It features chocolate ice cream with chocolate cookies and chocolate pudding ice cream. It certainly sounds delicious enough that we might have to book a session.

Your favorite school sandwich got the ice cream treatment in 1989 with the release of Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter & Jelly flavor. It sounded simple — peanut butter ice cream with peanut butter bits and a raspberry jam swirl — which may have been its downfall from a brand so known for its over-the-top flavors. Unfortunately, customers just weren't into having a sandwich-inspired ice cream, even if peanut butter is a popular flavor and mix-in for many ice cream brands. The flavor folded after a year.

However, Ben & Jerry's didn't want to go down without a fight, like any kid facing off against the schoolyard bully. In 2013, the brand released a Target-exclusive ice cream called Peanut Butter Jam Session. It was a peanut butter ice cream with crunchy peanut butter and a raspberry jam swirl. That one stuck around a bit longer, before getting cut in 2017 (and renamed "A Swirled of Difference" in 2015).

Now that's Italian! It was 1997 when Ben & Jerry's decided to test the palates of its customers and bring them an ice cream that was quite uncommon then, even if we wouldn't raise an eyebrow at it now (looking at you, Salt & Straw). The Holy Cannoli flavor was made with a creamy ricotta and pistachio ice cream that had chocolate covered cannoli pieces and roasted pistachios.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the ice cream brand was well ahead of its time, because this flavor got the boot the following year. Clearly, the company knew that it had the makings of a hit, because many years later, it split up Holy Cannoli into two different flavors: cannoli, a mascarpone ice cream with fudge-covered pastry shell pieces and a mascarpone swirl, and Pistachio Pistachio, a pistachio ice cream with roasted pistachios. Both are currently available in pints and in Ben & Jerry's scoop shops.

A triple threat of blueberries, Wild Maine Blueberry was a blueberry ice cream with Maine blueberry puree and wild Maine blueberries that was first released in 1992 – not Washington blueberries, which is the state with the highest rate of blueberry production. Before Ben & Jerry's went all-in on chocolate and cookie-inspired confections, creations like Wild Maine Blueberry had a chance — at least, for a very little while.

Perhaps it wasn't exciting enough to customers, who just had one flavor — blueberry — in the ice cream, even if it did take on three different forms. Maybe the consumer desire for a little more in their pints is what propelled Wild Maine Blueberry off store shelves and into the Flavor Graveyard. Perhaps if Ben & Jerry's had added a cheesecake element to the mix — much like their successful Strawberry Cheesecake flavor — this one would've stuck around longer than a year.

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Called "the worst flavor we ever had" by Flavor Guru Peter Lind, 1989 saw the release of Sugar Plum, a whimsical name for an unfortunate ice cream. Sugar Plum was a plum ice cream with a caramel swirl, and it was a failure from the get-go.

According to Ben & Jerry's, it was one of the brand's biggest flavor flops ever, selling only a single pint during its first three weeks on store shelves. The flavor was inspired by the Nutcracker and was actually one of two created to suit the holiday theme (the other was called Nutcracker Sweet). The brand has even wondered how the original flavor made it past initial taste-testing to make it to store shelves, considering how dismally it performed. By 1990, the show was over for Sugar Plum, and it was discontinued forever.

An ice cream flavor that might serve the questionable dual purpose of waking you up and putting you to sleep, it was Ben & Jerry's Tennessee Mud. The flavor with a less-than-appetizing name was released in 1988 and was a coffee ice cream with amaretto, Jack Daniel's whiskey, and roasted slivered almonds.

Ben & Jerry's rarely works with alcohol in its ice cream (perhaps due to the short life this flavor ended up living, being that it was discontinued in 1989), and really swung for the fences by featuring not one but two spirits in this flavor. There is currently a Topped flavor that features alcohol, called Whiskey Biz. However, if you have a craving for coffee ice cream without the burn of alcohol, Ben & Jerry's still has you covered: Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz is a popular flavor from the brand that features coffee ice cream with espresso fudge chunks mixed throughout. It's available both in scoop shops and pints at most grocery stores.