Ice cream is everyone’s favorite summer treat. Somewhere down the line, though, flavor adventurists took a wrong turn and ended up creating some wild ice cream flavors. We can hardly believe they’re real.
Lobster
We all love eating lobster, but bits of crustacean in ice cream? No thanks. So, who dreamt up this wild ice cream flavor in the first place?
Maine’s Ben & Bills Chocolate Emporium wanted to prove that they made their ice cream in-house. That’s why they created something you couldn’t find anywhere else.
The butter-infused ice cream is mixed with local lobster. It’s cooked, chopped up, and buttered. According to the company’s website, this is one of their most popular items.
Foie Gras
Foie gras (a.k.a fattened duck liver) is a delicacy that’s been banned in California. If you want a new way to enjoy the controversial product, here it is.
Within two months of opening, Brooklyn-based Odd Fellows Ice Cream Co. released 50 unique flavor combinations. One of those flavors was an homage to foie gras.
The dish is, in part, so divisive because the geese and ducks are force-fed. The over-indulgence makes their livers balloon to 10 times the normal size.
Ghost Pepper
The Ice Cream Store in Rehoboth Beach, DE, created a wild ice cream flavor so hot, you need to sign a waiver to eat it. Yeah…not our thing.
This doesn’t just use ghost peppers. It features ribbons of three ghost pepper sauces, a jalapeno hot sauce, and even a ghost pepper mash.
According to Atlas Obscura, the flavor is cool and absolutely fiery at the same time. If you try this, then you’re a lot braver than we are.
Garlic
Cooking without garlic is almost blasphemous. The vegetable’s aromatic flavors pair wonderfully with pretty much any meal except for dessert — or so we thought.
Apparently, garlic ice cream is hugely popular in some places. People serve it at food festivals as well as ice cream shops and stands across the country.
One Minneapolis store is taking this flavor to the next level. Sebastian Joe’s threw the internet for a loop with their Roasted Garlic and Almond Chip ice cream.
Pizza
We all love pizza, but does anyone want pizza ice cream? Philadelphia’s Little Baby’s Ice Cream decided to create this flavor to commemorate their neighboring business.
They’re located next door to Pizza Brain, the world’s first and only pizza memorabilia museum. Well, what’s the verdict on this weird ice cream flavor?
The pizza-flavored ice cream incorporates tomato, basil, oregano, salt, and garlic. It produces a very weird (but undeniably rich and creamy) treat. We’d try it.
Champagne And Viagra
It was created as a special favor to a celebrity. Award-winning food inventor Charlie Harry Francis is also affectionately known as the real-life Willy Wonka.
It’s not inaccurate. He’s created everything from glow-in-the-dark ice cream to an edible fragrance factory. But this has got to be his pièce de résistance.
The ice cream is bright blue, tastes like champagne, and is laced with 25mg of Viagra. The name? Arousal. We’re going to pass on it for now.
Beef-Tongue
This Japanese favorite might jar some people’s tastebuds. When you have a lick of ice cream, you don’t expect to be licked back.
This ice cream changes that dynamic. It’s vanilla, but has pieces of beef tongue mixed throughout. It’s been described as tasting like “milky beef stew.”
As you might imagine, we’re not sure whether to gag or cry. Despite sounding like a culinary nightmare, beef tongue ice cream is extremely popular in Japan.
Beer
Beer-flavored ice cream just recently became legal in New York. In 2018, former governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill legalizing craft beer-infused ice cream.
It was added to an existing law that legalized wine ice cream. Since then, the production of craft beer ice cream boomed. People are loving it.
We all know the joys of having a beer after a long day. But imagining that yeasty, bitter taste mixed into ice cream makes our stomachs turn.
Bone Marrow And Cherry
Bone marrow is nutritious, but do you want it in your waffle cone? Portland-based ice cream maker, Salt & Straw, maintains some of the world’s biggest stars as fans.
It’s probably because the company has no chill when it comes to flavor creation. They claimed their cherry and bone marrow scoop has “a taste unlike any other.”
Yeah, we don’t doubt that at all. Apparently, Oprah Winfrey herself is a big fan of this ice cream shop. Does she like bone marrow?
Lox
Ever wished your ice cream was more like a bagel? Smoked salmon and cream cheese on a bagel is a New York classic.
Who are we to mess with classics? Max & Mina, a Flushing-based ice creamery, decided to take this idea to its next illogical conclusion.
They created a lox ice cream. The reviews are mixed. Some call it delicious, while one Yelper said it tasted like “lox in vanilla ice cream.”
Horse Meat
They’re not horsin’ around with this one. Japanese food is delicious. It just might not always be for people who like to play it safe.
In Tokyo, at a store called Ice Cream City, a flavor called basashi vanilla became a local favorite. The vanilla ice cream features chunks of horseflesh sashimi.
Apparently, it’s very chewy and sweet. On the plus side, the meat is lean. If you’re on a diet, it’s essentially guilt-free (depending on your feelings about horses).
Corn-on-the-Cob
This ice cream takes a barbeque staple from dinner to dessert. Remember Max & Mina, the Flushing ice creamery behind the lox ice cream?
Well, they have plenty more ideas where that came from. This time, they tried their hand at a barbecue favorite. We’re not sure how we feel.
According to reviews, the corn treat is a summertime favorite. People claim the flavor is “mind-blowing,” but we’re still not convinced. Depends on how much sugar they’ve added.
Fish-And-Chip
This British meal has gone to Australia and now to the freezer. Fish and chips have gotten a creamy makeover and people seem to love it.
In 2010, UK creamery Fredericks Dairies created what looked like fried fish. In actuality, it was a cod fillet ice cream encased in vanilla and pepper batter.
The dessert was complete with potato ice cream chips and salt and vinegar seasoning. Australian ice creamery Kailis then introduced a scoop flavored to taste like the British dish.
Creole-Tomato
This New Orleans ice cream store is more than adventurous, it’s downright wild. The South is home to some of the most delicious food.
When it comes to ice cream, they might’ve missed the mark. Creole Creamery has a host of wild ice cream flavors, including creole tomato.
Apparently, it’s a summertime favorite. It isn’t their only wacky treat. Their current flavor roster includes Creole cream cheese, pine forest, and azuki bean.
Cheeto
At this point, we’ve put Cheetos in everything. From KFC’s monstrous chicken sandwich to Flamin’ Hot Cheetos macarons, nearly every company wants to get in on Cheetos.
But nothing compares to Big Gay Ice Cream’s “Cheat-Ohs” dipped soft serve. The cheese-flavored soft serve is infused with dehydrated cheese and then dipped in crushed Cheetos.
It’s bright orange; it’s weird. And we can’t lie, we’re a little curious. Is it sweet? Savory? Cheesy? All three? We’re kind of dying for a sample.
Salad
This is one way to eat your greens. If you’re trying to eat healthier and opt for salads, this ice cream could be right up your alley.
It has a strawberry base, which sounds tasty. But then you encounter bits of lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers. It’s a dieter’s dream come true.
It’s also a great way to punk someone reaching for a sweet treat. We bet pistachio ice cream sounds a lot less adventurous now.
Ketchup
It seems like there’s a ketchup-flavored everything nowadays. Ice cream is just the latest victim. We like ketchup, sure, but not in our dessert.
It seems like this is mainly a UK thing. The London-based Ice Cream Project created the wild ice cream flavor to “elevate everyday flavors” (per New York Post).
It isn’t the only flavor they’ve “elevated.” They also created Quaker Oats ice cream and Heinz Baked Beans ice cream. We commend them for their efforts.
Mustard
If there’s a ketchup ice cream flavor, then there’s got to be a mustard. It’s bright yellow, and was originally created by the mustard company French’s.
Want mustard ice cream that’s a little more classy? Ice cream company Van Leeuwen released a grey poupon flavor in 2022. Unfortunately, it was limited-edition-only.
According to MassLive.com, Van Leeuwen’s ice cream isn’t too bad. Nick O’Malley, the reviewer, described it as “sweet and tangy,” but also likened it to a “soggy sandwich.”
Pickle
Yet another wild ice cream flavor brought to you by none other than Van Leeuwen. Seems like they like to walk on the wild side.
The flavor they created was dill pickle, specifically. It was another limited-edition flavor, though it was more recent than grey poupon, having been created in 2023.
Expectedly, it tastes weird. Depending on your personal opinion on dill pickles, though, it might not be a bad weird. We’re still on the fence.
Bacon and Egg
This takes the whole “dessert for breakfast” thing to a whole new level. This wild ice cream flavor was created by Heston Blumenthal, a famous chef.
He made it using egg custard as the base, with bacon flavor added on later. Apparently, the dessert has since become a smashing success.
It’s got to be popular for a reason. We’d try it out of sheer curiosity, if nothing else. So, would you give it a go?