Old-School Ice Cream Flavors That Have Nearly Vanished From The Freezer

Everyone's got a favorite ice cream flavor. Maybe it's classic like chocolate or vanilla, something fruity like strawberry or cherry, or one that's a little more off the beaten path like (pun intended) rocky road. But for the countless flavors available in freezer aisles and scoop shops across the country, there are just as many that have fallen by the wayside, falling victim to changing tastes and styles. 

Some of these varieties might seem outlandish to modern palettes, and though they've left –  or in some cases, nearly left — our ice cream lexicon, these flavors still played a part in the confection's sweet history. Though some hearken back to the dessert's earliest days, a few were even widely popular until more recent times. Taking a look back through the years reveals a number interesting ingredients for both sweet and savory choices — including sea creatures and cheese — as well as the many historical figures who fancied unique ways to satisfy their sweet tooth. Grab your ice cream scooper and let's dive in.

Ambergris — a rocky substance that builds up inside sperm whales' intestines — was used as an ice cream flavor as far back as the 17th century. Described as having an earthy quality, the pricey petrification also has a history of use in perfumes after its completed its task protecting a whale's internal soft tissue from consumed harmful materials like squid beaks. With a flavor profile likened to mushrooms, recorded ice cream recipes as early as the 1660s include ambergris along with almonds, bone marrow, nutmeg, and rose water.

As off-putting as it may sound to some, ambergris' excretion after forming in the digestive tracts of whales is not the driving reason behind the ingredient's — and ice cream flavor's — decline. For example, many coffee connoisseurs enjoy their caffeine kick with ingredients harvested from animal dung, like the world's most expensive coffee Kopi Luwak that uses partially digested coffee cherry that has passed through cats. With ambergris, though, efforts to ensure the preservation of whales have made it illegal for the sale or possession of the material stateside. While still available to collect and sell after it washes up on shores in Europe, any sort of transaction with ambergris has been outlawed in the United States since the enactment of the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.

Though having faded in popularity, some flavors of ice cream smack of Americana. Among those decadent delights is butter brickle — toffee covered in chocolate — which made its earliest known debut at the Blackstone Hotel in Omaha, Nebraska in the 1920s. As for who created the candy, some have bestowed that honor to Arthur Dempsey, the "sugar stick man" with seven candy making machine patents at the John C. Woodward Company, Iowa. Others have made the case that the Fenn Bros. Ice Cream and Candy Company out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota dreamed up the treat, as the company became known for its butter brickle trademark.

Known for certain is that the Fenn Bros. recipe was sold off to the manufacturer of Heath Bars in 1970, which was then acquired by Leaf, Inc. in 1989 before Hershey took ownership 1996. Similar to how butterscotch and licorice candies lost favor over the years, butter brickle has become increasingly less popular as an ice cream mainstay. Nowadays, it can typically only be found at select ice cream purveyors like the Oklahoma-based fast food and ice cream parlor chain Braum's.

These days, mention of cucumber calls to mind classic cocktails, salads, or spa treatments. But more than a century ago in Victorian England, the vegetable that so often plays second fiddle to its brined iteration, the pickle, was utilized as a star ingredient in ice cream by a entrepreneur who became known as the Queen of Ices. In fact, Agnes Bertha Marshall wrote two entire volumes dedicated to ice cream with the first, "The Book of Ices," published in 1885.

In addition to creations with fish curry and goose liver, Marshall conceived her Crème de Concombres by cooking a cucumber in sugary water before pulverizing it and adding ginger brandy, lemon juice, green coloring, and cream or custard to then set in the freezer. On top of making for a crisp flavored dessert, the cucumber ice cream served as an option for a palette cleanser between courses at a formal dinner. While this treat may make the cut at select five-star establishments, it hardly fits the bill for what mainstream markets crave nowadays.

When Baskin-Robbins originally opened in the 1940s, a plan to have one flavor for every day of the month gave birth to the iconic original 31 flavors. Among options like black walnut, chocolate, coffee, egg nog, peach, and peppermint fudge ribbon, founders and brothers-in-law Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins included one flavor that already had a popular following in southern California. Typically cultivated in arid climes like Africa and Australia, the American Southwest was a perfect environment for dates.

Whether paired with almonds or walnuts, the caramel quality of the fruit made it a delight on ice cream as early as 1908 at an Arizona ice cream parlor, while bars and breads became the rage in times of scarcity. Likewise, Coachella Valley, California found multiple businesses opening in the 1920s and '30s offering up date shakes, making the beverage the signature drink of the region to this day. As for Baskin Robbins, its original 31 flavors paved the way for the creation of more than 1,400 other tasty treats in the decades that followed.

Though there is some debate as to when exactly ice cream was first created, throughout history there is agreement about the love for flavorful forms of frozen water. The litany of famous figures who enjoyed sweet treats from time to time includes none other than the empire-building Alexander the Great. Of the options that the Macedonian had to mix with snow and ice, Alexander was said to prefer ingredients like milk, nectar, and honey.

Centuries after Alexander's reign, the Medici family held considerable power in Italy and efforts at entertaining guest included incorporating milk, eggs, and honey into a concoction that would come to be known as gelato — relying heavily on freezing techniques that Marco Polo had previously conveyed following his journey to the East. Despite the common use of the fruits of bee labor throughout history, honey is hardly seen as a flavor of ice cream nowadays. Instead, much like caramel and chocolate sauces, those inclined for a floral note in further sweeting their dessert may use the sticky syrup as a topping.

When it comes to the official use of "ice cream" to describe the frozen treat so popular it gets its own section in the supermarket, historians have found the English politician Elias Ashmole had been the first in the nation to document the term. That occasion came after attending a feast with King Charles II in 1671. By that measure, Lady Grace Granville's account for the flavor marked orange blossom as the oldest of the old-school when, despite alleged efforts by the king to keep the recipe a secret, she had made it public by writing it down at some point in the 1680s.

Her record of using orange blossom was followed a few decades later with the publication of Mrs. Mary Eales's Receipts in 1718, credited as containing the first published recipe for ice cream in history. Gusto for floral flavoring lasted only so long, though, as classic flavors like chocolate, lemon, and even pumpkin soon became favorites among those who had access to the frozen delicacy. 

To modern palettes, some popular ice cream flavors of the past likely look like they belong on an episode of "Bizarre Foods," or that they were dreamed up for a "Fear Factor" challenge. This includes oysters which, on top of other things you may not have known about the shellfish, have developed a dessert mythology. Among those indefinitely attributed with a fondness for the flavor, American writer Mark Twain and the United States fourth first lady, Dolley Madison, are often brought up, though there's no strong evidence to suggest that either regularly enjoyed or served oyster ice cream.

That's because oyster ice cream is somewhat of an early American myth. The recipe that appeared in Mary Rudolph's 1824 cookbook "The Virginia Housewife" was described as straining then-frozen rich oyster soup; it's unlikely that such a concoction even remotely resembled ice cream as it's known today. Still, the intrigue continued into the 21st century. In attempting to give life to this forgotten bit of Americana, celebrity chef, restauranteur, and charity founder José Andrés once offered his own take on the mythical dish. In 2011, Andrés' Washington D.C. restaurant America Eats Tavern (which closed in 2020) collaborated with the National Archives to serve up some historic flavors — including oyster ice cream. While this flavor may have never been in freezers to begin with, the novelty — and curiosity it continues to spark — will always be too good to pass up.

Among the Founding Fathers favored flavors, there is another old-school treat that stands out as a preference of none other than America's most famous ice cream aficionado, President George Washington. Thanks to the shelf stability of Parmesan cheese that makes it robust enough to endure an ocean voyage at a time before refrigeration, it was a welcome European delicacy for the cosmopolitan appetites of the age.

As common as ice cream has become throughout the 20th century and beyond, during America's Revolutionary Era it remained primarily accessible to the upper crust. To that end, Washington did not skimp when it came to delighting guests at his Mount Vernon home or at the capital during his time as president. Records indicate equipment had been purchased after the war, as well as while Washington served as chief executive, and that some 10 ice cream pots had been accounted for at his estate following his death. Contemporary Frederick Nutt's recipe book "The Complete Confectioner" included but one cheese flavor in a list of ice cream options — Parmesan.

Operatic fandom was responsible for two well-known creations by French chef Auguste Escoffier that have since outlived a stint as a popular ice cream flavor. Before the turn of the century, Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba was a regular at the Savoy Hotel in London. At the time, Escoffier, a fan of the singer and chef at the hotel, created a dessert named in her honor that featured peaches and raspberry sauce served over vanilla ice cream.

That combination later went on to be featured by the same name as one of the offerings from Sealtest Dairy, whose parent company Kraft General Foods was acquired by Unilever in 1993 and eventually discontinued all Sealtest products. While raspberry and peach make appearances independently in ice creams, or as part of other flavor combinations, the peach Melba, featured in Escoffier's "A Guide To Modern Cookery" along with his hazelnut soufflé, has become a rarity. Meanwhile, Melba toast, said to have been made for the singer by Escoffier when she had taken ill during a later stay at the Savoy, has remained a common item found on grocery shelves and at restaurants.

If asked to name as many ice cream flavors as one could, most would undoubtedly list vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and any alternative that might stand out as their personal favorite. Likewise, some would surely rattle off rum raisin despite perhaps having never tried it and rarely ever seeing it at stores. While some of that could be owed to the bad rap that raisins have (leaving many to seek delicious raisin swaps when recipes call for the dried fruit), this ice cream simply faded out of style over time.

Claiming its roots in Sicily as a style of gelato, Mediterranean confectioners had originally soaked Málaga raisins in Marsala wine before mixing them into the creamy desert. Stateside, Oklahoma's Daily Ardmoreite promoted the rum-soaked version in a 1932 advertisement even before Prohibition had officially been repealed by the 21st Amendment to the Constitution by the end of 1933. Rum raisin found a resurgence of popularity in the 1980s when New York-based ice cream company Häagen-Dazs began selling it as one of its flavors. Though not as popular as it once was, in recent years it had been voted as the preferred flavor of ice cream fans in Florida and Georgia.

It's been said before that licorice, like cilantro or candy corn, is simply one of the things that people love or hate. However, ropes and jelly beans aren't the only confectionary vehicles to bear weight of this polarizing flavor — alleged to be one of the 23 blended to make Dr Pepper — as it continues to delight fans in ice cream. This is especially true of a big cat color scheme inspired mix of licorice swirled throughout orange-flavored ice cream rightfully dubbed tiger tail.

Though the old-school flavor had mostly fallen out of favor by the 1970s, it experienced a nostalgic resurgence in recent years, particularly in Canada, where ice cream lovers continue to clamor for the classic. In fact, the orange and black scoops are not only available at local ice cream parlors, but at Canadian markets as well courtesy of big brands like Baskin-Robbins and Kawartha Dairy. The success of tiger tail across Canada has even seen Baskin-Robbins branch out into other international markets, introducing the citrus and licorice blend as far away as India and Japan.

Spotting the vibrant pink color behind the glass at an ice cream parlor might have you thinking you've come upon some fresh strawberry to enjoy — that is until you notice the candied fruit mixed throughout. Akin to the jellied bites incorporated into the notorious Christmas dessert, fruit cake, those candies are where the old-school ice cream flavor tutti frutti get its name.

Taken from the Italian phrase "tutti i frutti," which translates to "all fruits," this ice cream was once a go-to for dessert fans. The flavor, with the same appearance of speckled colors over pink, is even offered as one of the choices for Jelly Belly jelly beans fans. While it had been popular for some time,  other preferences had supplanted the treat infused with fruits like cherries, citron, and papaya, though it's still available at some scoop shops like Leopold's Ice Cream in Savannah, Georgia (pictured above). As for the Little Richard song of the same name, there is no proof that the artist was making a reference to the dessert when he wrote the rock and roll classic.

Among the endless possibilities incorporating fruits, liqueurs, vegetables, and even seafood into ice cream, we know that floral notes have long been a popular preference. This included the prominent use of violet throughout the Victorian Era and into the 20th century. While lavender gets much more attention these days when it comes to using flowery plants in treats, there are still some corners of the world where the tradition of violet ice cream is alive and well.

Travelers embarking to the south of France, not far from the border with Italy, might consider making a stop in the medieval village of Tourettes-sur-Loup, also known as the City of Violets. There, the annual Fête des Violettes, or Violet Festival, is held in March to showcase various crafts incorporating the locally cultivated flower. This includes the ever-popular ice cream to add an exclamation point to a trip through the storybook village. Those unable to make the trip can get a taste of the treat thanks to the re-introduction of Crème Yvette, a violet cordial made available by the Cooper Spirits Company. A few drops on some regular vanilla will do the trick.