Retired Ben & Jerry's Flavors That Deserve A Comeback

Ben & Jerry's co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are millionaires many times over, according to Celebrity Net Worth, but they will always be hippies at heart. This surely explains why they signed off on ice cream odes to Jerry Garcia and fellow Vermonters Phish. It's no surprise that Hugh Nanton Romney Jr., better known as Wavy Gravy, was also tapped to lend his jovial, clown-nosed likeness to a pint. In fact, his name was so befitting of a Ben & Jerry's flavor, it didn't even need to be adapted into a pun. 

The ice cream successfully managed to encapsulate the personality of the Merry Prankster and Woodstock "Please Chief" (via PBS), incorporating the perfect balance of sweetness and nuttiness. It featured a caramel and Brazil nut base laced with a chocolate hazelnut swirl and cashews. And, of course, the label sported some tie-dye. Unfortunately, after a noble eight-year run, Wavy Gravy was abruptly canceled.

In a 2011 interview with Vanity Fair, Mr. Gravy himself accused Ben & Jerry's corporate overlords Unilever of scrapping his namesake flavor because the profits from the ice cream's sales went to charity. "I was dumped for not being cost-effective," he said. "Poor Ben and Jerry were mortified." So are we! Except for a brief reappearance in 2005, Wavy Gravy has remained on ice. But it is well past time this Ben & Jerry's classic flavor got another chance for a comeback.

If you couldn't guess the origins of this super-duper limited-edition ice cream by its name, you are obviously not a Simpsons fan and, quite frankly, are completely out of touch with basic pop culture knowledge. Step up your game! Duff & D'oh-Nuts featured a Homer-approved mashup of chocolate and cream stout ice creams with glazed chocolate donuts (via Grub Street). Mmmm, donuts.

But much like Globex Corporation head honcho and possible psychopath Frank Scorpio's sole appearance on the show, this was a one-time-only treat, scooped in conjunction with the premiere of "The Simpsons Movie" in 2007. That means only a handful of fans were lucky enough to try it. One such taster was Jeremy Albright, who told The Ann Arbor News, "It was everything I thought it would be. Beer and donuts ice cream? I don't know why nobody's thought of it before."

Though neither Ben and Jerry nor their namesake ice cream ever appeared on "The Simpsons," punny pints of Honey Bono and Candy Warhol from the similar-sounding Ken & Harry's have been sold at Eatie Gourmet's, a specialty food store featured on the show (one can assume the ice cream is far too fancy for the Kwik-E-Mart).

Thankfully no Spam or Venezuelan beaver cheese ended up in this cleverly titled homage to what is arguably the greatest sketch comedy troupe of all time: Monty Python. That's not to say that Vermonty Python didn't offer a taste of the group's irreverent ethos, though. The out-of-the-box flavor combo successfully embodies the spirit of Pythons John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, and the late, great Graham Chapman and Terry Jones. In fact, it's made with coffee liquor, plus a chocolate cookie crumb swirl and some chocolate bovines, a nod to the unforgettably outrageous cow catapult scene from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Sadly, much like the original "Flying Circus" series, the flavor had an all too brief run with a mere two years in production and is now as dead as a pet store parrot. But you can never count out a return. Against all odds, Monty Python triumphantly reunited in 2014, after all (via IMDb). It's well past time for Vermonty Python to follow suit, isn't it?

This homage to the provider of one of ice cream's core ingredients may not have been a huge success at the time, but devotees still have a cow over its absence from the Ben & Jerry's lineup. Bovinity Divinity offered a dual-colored cocoa fusion, which combined milk chocolate ice cream and white chocolate cows with white chocolate ice cream and dark fudge cows. The flavor lasted three years so apparently some people dug it. But it was apparently not enough to prevent it from ascending to the spirit world. Its tombstone in the Ben & Jerry's graveyard reads, "Where do all the cows go when heaven gives the word? This flavor kicked the bucket when angels took the herd."

Perhaps Bovinity Divinity met its arguably untimely end due to the divisiveness over the inclusion of white chocolate, which we wholeheartedly believe doesn't deserve all the ire thrown its way. A good white chocolate experience is more than a sugar explosion, after all. If you currently want to get your white chocolate fix with a Ben & Jerry's pint, the ever-popular New York Super Fudge Chunk will do the trick.

Ben & Jerry's is known for packing a bevy of additions into its ice cream creations, but the company also has a somewhat less recognized history of keeping things simple. Case in point: the oldie but goodie Fresh Georgia Peach, a flavor that had a successful five-year run between 1986 to 1991. It take all that much to make, apart from plenty of fuzzy stone fruit and a sweet cream base. And that's all she wrote.

The flavor certainly lived up to its name. In the duo's 1987 recipe compendium "Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book," Cohen and Greenfield write about traveling down to Georgia's century-old Dickey Farms in order to inspect the freshly plucked peaches in person. 

But was that commitment to quality which likely led to the flavor's demise? On the Fresh Georgia Peach graveyard tombstone, the epitaph reads, "Fresh-picked peaches trucked from Georgia/Tasted great but couldn't last/'Cuz Georgia's quite a-ways away & trucks don't go that fast."

Long before "Clash of the Cones," Ben & Jerry's held a mid-'90s contest to pitch an ice cream flavor that would best exemplify the United Kingdom. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company received over 7500 cheeky entries including Queen Yum Mum, Ruby Chewsday, Choc Ness Monster, and finalists Jack the Ripple and Stiff Upper Flip. But the crown ended up being bestowed upon Cool Britannia, a popular reference at the time to the exploding Brit-pop scene (via The Phrase Finder). The trio of vanilla ice cream, strawberries, and fudge-covered shortbread packed into a Union Jack-emblazoned pint provided suitable snacking while listening to "Different Class" or "(What's the Story) Morning Glory?"

But just like Oasis, Cool Britannia wasn't destined to live forever. Some might say that the flavor never really quite became a supernova with the fan reaction more "whatever" than "don't go away." Little by little, Ben & Jerry's lost faith in its creation and ultimately ceased production on Cool Britannia in 1998. All we can say is thank you for the good times.