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Baskin-Robbins retired five flavors in a single day on July 15, 2010, including French Vanilla, which had been on the menu since 1945. The company calls the place they went the “Deep Freeze.” It holds decades of flavors built for one moment: the Beatles’ first American tour, the moon landing, the Bicentennial, a Soviet ice cream plant.
LIST OF DISCONTINUED BASKIN-ROBBINS FLAVORS
Baskin-Robbins has retired these 17 flavors. Launch years come from the company’s own releases and from news reports of the time. Where no record gives an end date, the table says so.
| Flavor | Launched | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| French Vanilla | 1945 | Retired July 2010 |
| Surfer’s Gremmie Nut | 1964 | Movie tie-in; end unrecorded |
| Beatle Nut | 1964 | Retired in the 1960s |
| 0031 Secret Bonded | 1965 | End unrecorded |
| Lunar Cheesecake | 1969 | Retired; back in 2012, 2015, 2019 |
| Caramel Praline Cheesecake | 1970 | Retired July 2010 |
| Campfire S’mores | 1975 | Retired July 2010 |
| Yankee Doodle Strudel | Bicentennial | End unrecorded |
| Valley Forge Fudge | Bicentennial | End unrecorded |
| Concorde Grape | Bicentennial | End unrecorded |
| Minuteman Mint | Bicentennial | End unrecorded |
| Apple Pie a La Mode | 1976 or 2006 | Retired July 2010 |
| Miami Ice | 1986 | End unrecorded |
| Kremlin Cranberry | 1988 | End unrecorded |
| Gorba Chocolate | 1990 | End unrecorded |
| Whyte 2K Chocolate Overload | Unrecorded | In the Deep Freeze by 2010 |
| Superfudge Truffle | 2007 | Retired July 2010; back in 2012, 2017 |
WHAT IS THE BASKIN-ROBBINS DEEP FREEZE?
The Deep Freeze is Baskin-Robbins’ name for its vault of retired flavors. On July 15, 2010, the company’s 65th birthday, it sent five flavors there at once: French Vanilla, Caramel Praline Cheesecake, Campfire S’mores, Apple Pie a La Mode and Superfudge Truffle.
Chief brand officer Srinivas Kumar said in the announcement that “never before have five flavors gone into the Deep Freeze at one time.” The stated reason was room for new ones.
Retired does not mean gone for good. In 2011 the company let fans vote one flavor back out. More than 80,000 votes came in, and Pistachio Almond Fudge, a flavor from 1967, won with 70 percent. A second “Big Thaw” vote followed in 2013.
FRENCH VANILLA
Discontinued: 2010
French Vanilla lasted 65 years. Baskin-Robbins calls it one of the first flavors Irv Robbins and Burt Baskin sold in 1945, a rich vanilla made with egg yolks.
Its retirement drew the loudest protest of the five. A “Save French Vanilla” group formed on Facebook, and the Dallas Observer reported that the uproar “centered on French Vanilla, a fixture since the company’s founding in 1945.” One fan wrote: “Please say it ain’t so Baskin Robbins!!!!”
French Vanilla has not returned as a scoop of its own. It did reappear in June 2013 as one of three vanillas swirled into a Flavor of the Month called Triple Vanilla. Häagen-Dazs put its fans through the same wringer with its own retired flavors.
BEATLE NUT
Discontinued: 1960s
Beatle Nut reached stores in 1964, five days after a reporter’s phone call. The reporter asked Irv Robbins what flavor would mark the Beatles’ first American tour. Baskin-Robbins had none.
Robbins answered anyway. “Uh, Beatle Nut, of course,” he said, according to his Los Angeles Times obituary, and the flavor was on sale five days later. It was pistachio ice cream with walnuts and a chocolate ribbon. The company says it was retired in the 1960s.
SURFER’S GREMMIE NUT
Discontinued: Unrecorded
Surfer’s Gremmie Nut went on sale in July 1964 at the 18 Baskin-Robbins shops in the San Fernando Valley. It was made for one beach movie, For Those Who Think Young.
A newspaper caption from that month, reproduced by PBS SoCal, called it “the only ice cream flavor ever invented to star in a motion picture.” No record says how long it lasted.
0031 SECRET BONDED
Discontinued: Unrecorded
0031 Secret Bonded appeared in 1965, at the height of the James Bond films. Baskin-Robbins’ own timeline says the flavor appeared “to celebrate the popular James Bond 007™ movie series.”
The company still listed it among its historic flavors in 2010. No source records what was in it or when it left.
ASTRONUT & LUNAR CHEESECAKE
Discontinued: Retired, with returns in 2012, 2015 and 2019
Lunar Cheesecake landed in stores on July 21, 1969, the day after Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Baskin-Robbins tells the story itself: a green and white cheesecake ice cream with cheesecake pieces and a graham cracker ribbon, a nod to the old joke that the moon is made of cheese.
It is the Deep Freeze flavor that keeps escaping. The company brought it back in 2012 for Men in Black III, again in 2015, and again in July 2019, 50 years after the landing.
Astronut is the company’s other space-age name. Baskin-Robbins says both flavors honored the NASA missions of the 1960s, but it gives no year and no recipe for Astronut.
CARAMEL PRALINE CHEESECAKE
Discontinued: 2010
Caramel Praline Cheesecake was vanilla cheesecake ice cream with a caramel ribbon and pralined pecans. The company dates it to 1970.
It went into the Deep Freeze with the 2010 five. A year later it finished as a runner-up in the fan vote that brought back Pistachio Almond Fudge.
CAMPFIRE S’MORES
Discontinued: 2010
Campfire S’mores ran a ribbon of marshmallow and bits of graham cracker through milk chocolate ice cream. The 2010 retirement notice dates it to 1975.
Not every account agrees. A 2021 roundup by 24/7 Tempo dates the flavor to 2002 and describes a different recipe. The company’s 1975 is the date on record.
THE BICENTENNIAL QUARTET
Discontinued: Unrecorded
Baskin-Robbins made four flavors for America’s 200th birthday:
- Yankee Doodle Strudel
- Valley Forge Fudge
- Concorde Grape
- Minuteman Mint
The Bicentennial fell in the company’s own 31st year. Baskin-Robbins says President Gerald Ford “enjoyed a quart of Valley Forge Fudge created just for the occasion.” That claim comes from the company; no 1976 news report of it has turned up.
Yankee Doodle Strudel was still in the Deep Freeze in 2011, when it appeared on the fan ballot of 31 retired flavors.
APPLE PIE A LA MODE
Discontinued: 2010
Apple Pie a La Mode was a vanilla ice cream carrying pieces of apple and pie crust, with a ribbon of caramel and cinnamon. It was retired in July 2010.
Its birth year is a puzzle of the company’s own making. The 2010 retirement notice says 1976. A 2013 company release says it was “originally launched in 2006.”
MIAMI ICE
Discontinued: Unrecorded
Miami Ice was Baskin-Robbins’ answer to Miami Vice. The company’s fact sheet says the flavor was inspired by the show, and 24/7 Tempo dates it to 1986: a sorbet of lime and pink grapefruit.
By 2010 the company was naming it as a Deep Freeze flavor “from the 1980’s.” Citrus rarely lasts in the freezer case: Blue Bell’s Key Lime Pie met the same end.
KREMLIN CRANBERRY
Discontinued: Unrecorded
Kremlin Cranberry came out of a Cold War deal. In 1988, after the Reagan-Gorbachev summit, Baskin-Robbins won approval to sell ice cream from a shop in Moscow’s Rossiya Hotel. The company announced Kremlin Cranberry when the deal was signed.
GORBA CHOCOLATE
Discontinued: Unrecorded
Gorba Chocolate arrived in April 1990, named for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It marked a bigger deal than the Moscow shop: a $30 million ice cream plant in the Moscow suburb of Ostankino.
The Los Angeles Times reported the flavor as “a white and dark chocolate concoction.” Baskin-Robbins president William Savel told the paper why he liked his odds: “Their ice cream is good, but our ice cream is better and we have a greater variety.”
WHYTE 2K CHOCOLATE OVERLOAD
Discontinued: Unrecorded
Whyte 2K Chocolate Overload is a name with almost no paper trail. Baskin-Robbins listed it among its historic flavors in 2010, beside Candi-date and Bobsled Brownie.
The company has published no launch year and no recipe for it.
SUPERFUDGE TRUFFLE
Discontinued: 2010
Superfudge Truffle lasted three years. It launched in 2007, a chocolate fudge ice cream studded with ganache and pieces of toffee truffle, and it was the youngest of the five flavors retired in 2010.
It did not stay frozen. Baskin-Robbins brought it back as Flavor of the Month in February 2012 and again in January 2017. Mass retirements are not unique to Baskin-Robbins: Ben & Jerry’s has retired dozens of pints, and other ice cream brands have vanished outright.
BASKIN-ROBBINS FLAVORS THAT ARE NOT DISCONTINUED
Several flavors that people search for as “discontinued” are seasonal or still sold. A shop carries 31 flavors plus the Flavor of the Month, so most of the library is out of the case on any given day.
| Flavor | Since | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Baseball Nut | 1958 | Seasonal, baseball season |
| Pink Bubblegum | 1970 | Sold shop by shop |
| Rainbow Sherbet | 1972 | Sold year-round |
| Quarterback Crunch | 1978 | Seasonal, football season |
| Winter White Chocolate | 1985 | Seasonal, winter |
| Peppermint | 1946 roots | Seasonal, December |
| Mom’s Makin’ Cookies | 2014 | Rotates in and out |
| Cookie Monster | 2023 | Permanent since 2024 |
| Chocolate Mousse Royale | Unrecorded | In shops in 2025 |
Baseball Nut is the oldest of these. Baskin-Robbins made it in 1958 to greet the Dodgers in Los Angeles: vanilla ice cream, cashews and a black raspberry ribbon. Pink Bubblegum has become harder to find because each franchise owner decides whether to carry it.
Quarterback Crunch has the best origin story of the group. Two store owners in Chatsworth, California, came up with it in 1978 after watching their local team’s quarterback get sacked again and again.
THE BASKIN-ROBBINS FLAVORS THAT NEVER LEFT THE LAB
Most Baskin-Robbins flavors never reached a store at all. The company tested hundreds a year and released eight or nine. Irv Robbins’s Los Angeles Times obituary names three that died in the laboratory: Ketchup, Lox and Bagels, and Grape Britain.
Robbins named the survivors himself. Plum Nuts was plums, vanilla and walnuts. ChaChaCha was cherry chocolate chip. The habit made him easy to spot. “I’ve even had people stop me in my car, which has the license plate ‘31 BR,’ on the freeway,” he said in 1999.
DISCONTINUED BASKIN-ROBBINS FLAVORS FAQ
Which Baskin-Robbins flavors have been discontinued?
Baskin-Robbins retired five flavors on July 15, 2010: French Vanilla, Caramel Praline Cheesecake, Campfire S’mores, Apple Pie a La Mode and Superfudge Truffle. Earlier retirements include Beatle Nut from the 1960s and Miami Ice from the 1980s. The company calls its vault of retired flavors the Deep Freeze.
What flavor did Baskin-Robbins bring back?
Baskin-Robbins brought back Pistachio Almond Fudge in 2011 after it won a fan vote with 70 percent of more than 80,000 votes. Lunar Cheesecake has returned three times, in 2012, 2015 and 2019. Superfudge Truffle came back as Flavor of the Month in February 2012 and January 2017.
How many flavors does Baskin-Robbins have?
Baskin-Robbins counts 1,400 flavors in its library, according to its owner Inspire Brands. A single shop carries 31 at a time plus the Flavor of the Month. The library held nearly 150 flavors by the late 1950s, 300 by 1967 and more than 1,000 by 2005.
What were the original Baskin-Robbins flavors?
Baskin-Robbins has confirmed French Vanilla, Rocky Road, Very Berry Strawberry and the Orange, Pineapple and Raspberry sherbets as original flavors. The first shop, Snowbird, opened in 1945 with 21 flavors. The 31st flavor, Chocolate Mint, arrived by 1948, and “31 flavors” became the slogan in 1953.
SOURCES
- Baskin-Robbins, retirement of five flavors press release, July 15, 2010
- Baskin-Robbins, Big Thaw vote result press release, June 30, 2011
- Baskin-Robbins, second Big Thaw contest press release, September 12, 2013
- Baskin-Robbins, the story behind Lunar Cheesecake, July 19, 2019
- Valerie J. Nelson, obituary of Irvine Robbins, Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2008
- George White, report on the Baskin-Robbins Soviet plant, Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1990
- Hanna Raskin, report on the fan reaction, Dallas Observer, July 19, 2010
- Liz Ohanesian, a short history of Baskin-Robbins, PBS SoCal, January 17, 2018
- 24/7 Tempo, ice cream flavors that disappeared, May 4, 2021
- Inspire Brands, Baskin-Robbins at 80, December 11, 2025
- Baskin-Robbins UK, company timeline
- Baskin-Robbins, company history fact sheet (PDF), April 2022
- Baskin-Robbins, the story of Quarterback Crunch
Updated November 2026: every date and recipe on this page was rechecked against company releases and news reports. An earlier version listed a flavor called Preppy Mint; no record of it could be found, and it has been removed.
