“I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!”
Now that we have the attention of all the sweet tooths around the world, International Ice Cream day is right around the corner. July 18th marks the glorious day with a global celebration of the most delicious dessert—ice cream.
Lately, ice creameries have become more experimental with their flavors, some in unimaginable ways. Ice cream has gone from the basic-yet mouth-watering vanilla, chocolate and strawberry to a plethora of unique and unexpected flavors that can turn any traditionalist’s head, but are they as popular as the old standards?
The good people of award-winning online cake shop Jack and Beyond were curious to know whether the original flavours held so close to our hearts were still customer favorites, or whether it was time to make a shift in our palettes and make space for creative and unusual flavors on the market.
To find the truth, Jack and Beyond analyzed credible articles listing different ice-cream flavors and formed a seed list. Then, the company entered all those flavors on a data sheet counted all the Instagram hashtags for each flavors (eg: #strawberryicecream).
See also: 20 of the Best Ice Cream Shops Across America
The results show that simple flavors still rule the ice-cream kingdom. Vanilla received the highest number of Instagram posts at 439,108 hashtags alone. Surprisingly, chocolate came in at third with 301,979 hashtags, behind the mighty matcha with 315,714. Fruity flavors coconut, strawberry and blueberry also made it to the top 20 list.
Dessert flavors ranked strong, such as Oreo, cookie dough and cotton candy. Other Asian-inspired flavors made the cut, too, including ube. It’s a sweet vegetable flavor that’s bright purple in color, making it a scrumptious and very Instagramable flavor, indeed.
While some stick to traditional roots, plenty others are willing to experiment with the bizarre. Outside of the top 20, Jack and Beyond found lobster flavored ice-cream had 955 hashtags, sweetcorn brought in 1,812 hashtags, olive oil held strong with 2,262 hashtags, basil came in at 2,545 hashtags, garlic was tagged 4,495 time, and the ever-popular bacon earned a whopping 6,242 hashtags.
We are surely getting more creative, so how long will vanilla be the reigning champion? Only time will tell.
1) Vanilla (439,108 hashtags)
2) Matcha (315,714 hashtags)
3) Chocolate (301,979 hashtags)
4) Coconut (184,669 hashtags)
5) Strawberry (152,029 hashtags)
6) Banana (133,179 hashtags
7) Mango (97,809 hashtags)
8) Oreo (81,290 hashtags)
9) Coffee (59,736 hashtags)
10) Pistachio (52,118 hashtags)
11) Ube (35,414 hashtags)
12) Cookie dough (27,859 hashtags)
13) Avocado (26,748 hashtags)
14) Mint (23,899 hashtags)
15) Pumpkin (21,405 hashtags)
16) Cotton candy (19,050 hashtags)
17) Salted caramel (18,827 hashtags)
18) Bubble gum (18,523 hashtags)
19) Peanut butter (18,229 hashtags)
20) Blueberry (18,147 hashtags)
Photography by: Jean Balzan/Pexels
