Five Nostalgic Ice Cream Flavors Disappearing From Freezers Today

Freezers are currently stuffed with trendy treats like cookies and cream, salted caramel, and mint chocolate chip. Yet old-time favorites seem to have melted away completely. Flavors such as Butter Brickle, rum raisin, and maple walnut were once standard options at counters and in grocery aisles. Today, many of them vanish from the shelves as tastes shift. The food site Tasting Table recently reviewed nostalgic flavors that defined childhoods for millions of Americans. Five of these might spark sweet memories right now.

Butter Brickle ice cream was inspired by a butterscotch candy made in Omaha, Nebraska, back in the 1920s. It featured a rich butterscotch flavor mixed with crunchy toffee pieces. By the 1970s this treat had become a national favorite, yet finding it is difficult now. A Facebook group dedicated to memories of the 1970s brought up the flavor repeatedly as fans recalled its signature bits of crunch.

Rum raisin ice cream dates back to the 1930s. It surged in popularity during the 1970s when the rum-soaked raisins and vanilla base became widely available in shops and grocery stores everywhere. The flavor even reached the White House, where President Richard Nixon reportedly served it for dessert. Though you can still find it today, spotting it has become harder across many parts of the country. One Reddit user wrote in a subreddit dedicated to ice cream that they miss it so much because it is their favorite.

Baskin-Robbins introduced its bright Pink Bubblegum ice cream in the 1970s with small pieces of chewy bubblegum mixed into each scoop. This unusual flavor became a childhood favorite for some and has occasionally been brought back by Baskin-Robbins for limited runs. One person recalled that it was their favorite and they would eat the ice cream while saving the bubblegum for later to enjoy.

Before it became an ice cream, heavenly hash referred to a fruit salad made with whipped cream, marshmallows, candied fruit, and nuts. Sealtest introduced its Heavenly Hash ice cream in 1969 by combining marshmallows, almonds, and chocolate chips for a treat similar to Rocky Road. The flavor later disappeared along with the rest of that Sealtest line, but fans still remember it fondly. One Facebook user simply wrote that it was a great ice cream back then.

Maple ice cream has deep roots in the Northeast where it appeared in some 19th-century cookbooks. Adding walnuts eventually made it a New England staple. Maple walnut, also known as maplenut, was much easier to find in the 1970s but has since faded from many aisles and shops. One Reddit user recalled that their grandmother loved the flavor and they had not seen it since childhood.