You've heard of graveyards, where we ceremonially store human remains. But did you know that Ben & Jerry's ice cream company has a Flavor Graveyard for discontinued lines of its popular dairy snacks?
Even the best Ben & Jerry's flavors eventually melt away. Here we lay our dearly de-pinted to rest so we can mourn their chunks and swirls and keep their sweet memories alive. The Flavor Graveyard is closed in the winter season due to its remote location on property and the hazardous winter terrain.
Unlike other offbeat memorials (such as the graveyards of dead Google services) the Flavor Graveyard is an actual place maintained at the company's factory in Waterbury, Vermont. Here's a promotional video it posted to YouTube, showing headstones for deceased flavores such as "Holy Cannoli" and "Wavy Gravy", each with a "brief humorous eulogy"witty epitaph" and birth and death dates.
We've created a lot of euphoric flavors over the years, but for better or worse, some of them have moved on to the great waffle cone in the sky, otherwise known as our Flavor Graveyard. The Flavor Graveyard exists in two incarnations: on Ben & Jerry's websites around the world, and also at the Ben & Jerry's Factory in Waterbury, Vermont. Yes, there is an actual Flavor Graveyard on a hill overlooking our factory, complete with granite headstones and witty epitaphs for each flavor.
The physical site opened in 1997 with just four retired flavors. Since then, more than 30 flavors have been "laid to rest" in what now amounts to a museum of faddish marketing opportunities such as "Cool Britannia (1995-1998) and "Economic Crunch" (1987). I miss "Coconutterly Fair," though I can't rightly say it was better than the "Coconut Seven Layer Bar" now in stores.
