Ben (of Ben & Jerry’s) Wants This Discontinued Flavor to Come Back

Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen shared which ice cream flavor he’d like to bring back—and it’s a pretty obscure one.

Speaking with Parade, Cohen said that one of his favorites ended up in the Flavor Graveyard: the Mocha Walnut. Cohen thought “it was great,” but some Ben & Jerry’s fans thought otherwise. “It wasn’t too sweet…it had some subtlety to it. But we ended up getting complaint letters on it,” he said. “Half the people said that the mocha had too much chocolate; the other half said that it had too much coffee.”

The Mocha Walnut was introduced in 1981. On Ben & Jerry’s site, it’s included in a list of the top flavor flops. “Mocha Walnut is my all-time favorite flavor,” Ben said in the listicle. “But when we packed it in pints, it turned out to be our all-time worst-selling ice cream. Jerry is fond of saying that there is no accounting for taste.” 

Since then, Ben & Jerry’s has seen success with other coffee ice creams, such as Coffee, Coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz—made with a coffee base and espresso bean fudge chunks. And Ben & Jerry’s has other chocolate-and-nut-based flavors that are more decadent and fan favorites, such as the New York Super Fudge Chunk, made with chocolate ice cream and white and dark fudge chunks, pecans, walnuts, and fudge-covered almonds. That one, which was introduced four years after the Mocha Walnut, is still one of the most recognizable flavors from the Vermont-based brand. 

Besides the Mocha Walnut, there are so many other great flavors that have sadly perished in the Flavor Graveyard since Ben & Jerry’s 1978 launch, like Creme Brulée, which recreated the flavor of the classic French dessert, and Holy Cannoli, a ricotta-and-pistachio ice cream with chocolate-covered cannolis and roasted pistachios.