Ben & Jerry's Flavor Graveyard Features A Rich Sorbet We're Likely Never Getting Back

If you're an ice cream lover, your list of best friends might literally include the names Ben and Jerry. Who hasn't opted for a Friday night hangout with a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream rather than going out and visiting (non-frozen) friends? Much as we love those cleverly conceived, flavorful pints, though, sometimes the company breaks our hearts by taking away a flavor we especially treasured. One of them was a sorbet called Devil's Food Chocolate. It was a simple but rich mashup of light chocolate and dark chocolate sorbets swirled together. Though it amassed some devoted fans during its sojourn in supermarket freezer cases, the flavor only existed from 1996 to 2001 before Ben & Jerry's pulled the proverbial plug.

Devil's Food Chocolate Sorbet is just one flavor among a long list of consignees to Ben & Jerry's Flavor Graveyard, which is what the company calls its list of discontinued ice creams. There are also many other canceled Ben & Jerry's flavors we wish would come back. For instance, Fossil Fuel was a popular flavor that disappeared – this was due to concerns people would misinterpret the name as promoting the nonrenewable energy source (the flavor was actually a nod to prehistory, not oil and coal). 

Though Ben & Jerry's hasn't specified why Devil's Food Chocolate was ripped from its conveyor belts (and, subsequently, from our mouths and hearts), flavors often get canceled because their sales numbers just weren't high enough. So, it's likely that's the reason the sorbet was consigned to the flavor furnace.

While it's possible for a laid-to-rest Ben & Jerry's flavor to return from the Flavor Graveyard, it doesn't happen often. If customer requests are sufficient to justify reviving one, it often comes back in another form — one the brand hopes will be more popular. For instance, Oatmeal Cookie Chunk made a comeback in 2023, but it wasn't the same ice cream at all. The original flavor was comprised of sweet cream cinnamon ice cream, oatmeal cookie chunks, and fudge. The revival pint was dairy-free with an oatmeal crème pie ice cream base, gluten-free oatmeal cookies, and swirls of marshmallow — nothing like the O.G. Even the name was different: Oatmeal Dream Pie.

Ben & Jerry's has noted that Oatmeal Cookie Chunk was its most requested flavor resurrection, with a high number of fans clamoring for the ice cream's return. The company keeps a list of the top 10 discontinued flavors it receives the most revival requests for, and Devil's Food Chocolate Sorbet doesn't make the cut. So, it's unlikely that, among the company's many canceled flavors, that particular type will ever get a do-over. Even if it did, if the company made its No. 1 requested flavor almost unrecognizable in its revival, a less-popular flavor isn't likely to come back in its true form, either.

So, fans of the rich sorbet will have to content themselves with one of B&J's other nondairy flavors. Chocolate Fudge Brownie could be a closer contender, but if you want something a little wilder, get a non-dairy version of Phishfood (chocolate base with gooey marshmallow swirls, caramel ribbons, and chocolate fudgy fish). If that's not enough, sometimes bigger is better, and the company announced earlier this year that it was giving ice cream lovers what they've always wanted: larger sizes! Taking a deep dive into a super-sized, 28-ounce Scoop-apalooza carton may be just the thing to help you console yourself over the loss of Devil's Food Chocolate.