5 Festive Holiday Ice Cream Flavors We Love This Year

Controversial opinion: Winter is the best season for ice cream. I don’t mean from a weather perspective—there’s something objectively disgusting about holding an ice cream cone whilst wearing gloves or mittens, and eating cold things when you’re already physically cold can feel like torture, but the flavors, guys. Holiday ice cream flavors are so good. Peppermint! Eggnog! HOT CHOCOLATE THAT’S ACTUALLY FRIGID. There’s a lot to love out there and while this taste test wasn’t exhaustive, we sat down to around a dozen Christmas ice cream flavors and found five we think you should seek out before Santa packs it in for the season. 

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Holiday Ice Cream!

Blue Bunny Holiday Edition Candy Cane Crunch Mini Bars

Instacart

The peppermint ice cream inside these little ice cream bars is totally fine—honestly, it’s better than other, more expensive brands because it’s less minty and doesn’t taste as much like toothpaste. (For the absolute best peppermint ice creams, check out the full ranking.) But the coating on these bars was our favorite part. It tastes exactly like Hickory Farms Meltaway Mints, but with little bits of crunchy peppermint candy embedded in it. Plus, the bars themselves are small, so they make a nice little treat without requiring too much of a commitment to eating something cold when you’re already cold. 

Credit: Merc / Blue Bunny

Rating:

7.5/10

Sporks

Holiday Ice Cream!

Tillamook Sugar Cookie Ice Cream

Instacart

Tillamook ice cream is always a little weird at first because it’s so light but has a little bit of pull to it. Anyway, we mostly really like Tillamook ice cream and this is a great holiday option. The ice cream has a warm, almost maple-y flavor that’s really unique. They call it “cookie dough” ice cream, meaning it’s meant to taste like cookie dough, BUT there are also bits of sugar cookie dough in the mix and little sugar inclusions, too. We’d like WAY more sugar cookie bits. I had to really hunt for a piece of sugar cookie dough, which was disappointing. Still, this is a fun, flavorful holiday ice cream that’s only around for a limited time.  

Credit: Merc / Tillamook

Rating:

8.5/10

Sporks

Holiday Ice Cream!

Favorite Day Gingerbread Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches

Target

I’ll be honest, the ice cream inside these cute cookie sandwiches is kind of an afterthought. It’s like any other vanilla ice cream in a cheap ice cream sandwich—sweet and very light bodied. But the cookies are what really shocked us. These are perfect gingerbread cookies. They’re soft and perfectly spiced. They have a grown-up gingerbread flavor, not a little kid gingerbread flavor. Trader Joe’s makes a good version of these, too—if you no longer shop at Target, grab those instead!

Credit: Merc / Target

Rating:

9/10

Sporks

Holiday Ice Cream!

Graeter’s Cozy Hot Cocoa Ice Cream

Kroger

Okay, the top two holiday ice creams on our list are basically tied. Ask yourself, “What sounds better rn: hot cocoa or eggnog?” If hot cocoa is your go-to holiday bev, read on. If eggnog is your jam, skip to the next blurb. Can’t stress this enough: Both of these Graeter’s Christmas ice cream flavors RULE. This one has such a deep cocoa flavor—it really tastes like cocoa and not just chocolate ice cream. The marshmallows in Graeter’s ice cream always knock our socks off, too. How are they still gooey? Anyway, they have such a fun mouthfeel in this application. Hot cocoa and marshmallows but frozen?? Man, this would be SO GOOD in a waffle cone. 

Credit: Merc / Instagram

Rating:

10/10

Sporks

Best of the Best

Graeter’s Spirited Eggnog

Kroger

This is just the absolute best version of eggnog. It’s creamy and nutmeggy and tastes like warm, brown booze, even though it doesn’t have an ABV (although, bourbon is listed in the ingredients). It’s the most perfect version of eggnog ice cream I could imagine. Use this to make an eggnog milkshake and go directly to heaven—do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Merry Christmas! 

Credit: Merc / Instagram

Rating:

10/10

Sporks