The Baskin-Robbins Flavor Created Specifically For The Beatles
Jamoca®, Chocolate Trilogy, Love Potion #31, Hokey Pokey: you never quite know what flavors you're going to find at Baskin-Robbins. After all, it's the ice cream shop colloquially known as "31 Flavors" — a number that once stood for an ice cream flavor every day of month, but has expanded to a whopping 1,400-plus flavors innovated over the last 75 years (per Baskin-Robbins).
Baskin-Robbins is notorious for continually introducing new, and sometimes wacky, ice cream flavors to their ever-growing library. Some are seasonal, some are just for fun, and some are invented to mark pop culture moments or big events worth celebrating. Because, what better way to celebrate everybody's favorite moments than with everybody's favorite dessert?
When it comes to big moments in American history, there's one moment from the days of "Yesterday" so big it was worth acknowledging "Across the Universe." It's a moment that made America "Twist and Shout" so much that Baskin-Robbins couldn't "Let It Be" — a pop culture moment that the ice cream shop had no choice but to "Come Together" to commemorate: Beatlemania.
How Beatle Nut came to be
What makes the Beatles-inspired ice cream flavor even better is the story behind it — because Beatle Nut wasn't just inspired by the Fab Four. In fact, the Beatles-themed flavor was dreamed up on the spot. That's because, as Baskin-Robbins explains, Irv Robbins had to think fast when a reporter from The Washington Post gave him a call.
As the story goes, in the midst of Beatlemania, the reporter asked Robbins if there'd be a new ice cream flavor to celebrate the Beatles' first tour in the U.S. With no new flavors planned and no real answer to give, Robbins apparently fudged a reply: "Uh, Beatle Nut, of course." And on the spot, Beatle Nut was imagined. In just five short days, the ice cream company was able to innovate, make, and distribute the new flavor — just in time to honor America's new favorite band.
So what Beatles-inspired nutty goodness did Baskin-Robbins invent? According to a Tweet from Decades Network, the flavor was made up of pistachio and walnut with the company's signature chocolate ribbon. Sounds like a flavor we'd go nuts for.
Other Baskin-Robbins flavors inspired by pop culture
Several fun Baskin-Robbins flavors have been inspired by pop culture over the years. Dating back to 1957, Baseball Nut® is a flavor that you'll still find in stores today — to mark the exciting move by the Dodgers from Brooklyn to their new home in Los Angeles. The flavor features vanilla-flavored ice cream with cashews and a black raspberry ribbon.
In 1969, one of our country's greatest achievements brought us all the way to the moon. To commemorate our astronauts safely landing in space, Baskin-Robbins created the very fitting Lunar Cheesecake as a play on the cheese-like surface of the moon. The flavor consists of "green and white cheesecake-flavored ice cream" with pieces of cheesecake and a graham cracker ribbon.
Fast forward to 2019 when Baskin-Robbins whipped up a strange flavor in partnership with Netflix to promote the popular show "Stranger Things." As a nod to a flavor served at the Scoops Ahoy ice cream shop that the characters worked at in Season 3, USS Butterscotch hit stores. The flavor features butterscotch ice cream with bits of butterscotch and a toffee ribbon.