The Only Ben & Jerry's Flavor To Ever Feature Raisins
Ben & Jerry's is no stranger to avant-garde flavors. The acid rock homage Cherry Garcia is one of the brand's longest-running flavors and also one of its most popular. Last year, the psychedelic band-inspired Phish Food was the company's number-seven best-seller. That's a solid fan base, considering Ben & Jerry's cranks out nearly one million pints of ice cream every single day, per Business Insider. The company has two production factories, both of which are located in Vermont and run 24 hours a day. According to Sarah Fidler, a Ben & Jerry's flavor guru, the minimum run size for any flavor the company decides to try making a batch of is 80,000 pints. "Not only do we have to love it," says Fidler, "but 80,000 fans have to love it, too."
For fan-favorite flavors like Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Chunky Monkey, 80,000 hardly seems like a staggering figure (to many fans, it might not seem like enough.) But, 80,000 becomes a much more compelling figure when you consider some of the less-popular flavors in Ben & Jerry's long and creative history — like this one — introducing: Dastardly Mash, the only Ben & Jerry's flavor to ever feature raisins. The flavor first debuted in 1979 (times were different then, we guess, if folks were craving raisins in their lovin' spoonful), but enduring fans have since come up with copycat recipes to resurrect the retired flavor at home. Here's what was so dastardly about the mash.
Dastardly Mash a dastardly flash in the pan
If butter pecan ice cream is a little too chock-full-of-nuts for your taste, the discontinued Dastardly Mash might've felt like drowning in a bowl of trail mix. In the famed Ben & Jerry's "Flavor Graveyard," Dastardly Mash's headstone reads, "Here the brazen DASTARDLY lies. Some say that raisins caused its demise." Dastardly Mash was chocolate ice cream packed with almonds, pecans, chocolate chips, and raisins. Whether you love the sound of it or would rather dive into a pint of Chocolate Fudge Brownie instead, Dastardly Mash had an admittedly good run: The flavor ran for 12 long years. Even co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield still debate about the controversial flavor.
Last year, Half Baked was Ben & Jerry's best-selling flavor. A blend of chocolate and vanilla ice creams with gobs of chocolate chip cookie dough and fudge brownie, it might seem like a far cry from the once (apparently) popular-enough nutty, raisiny Dastardly Mash. But, as some fans might propose, don't knock it till you try it. (That is if Ben & Jerry's ever makes another flavor to feature raisins, and you get an opportunity to try it at all.)