Ed Ranks Baskin Robbins' Original 31 Flavors

The father of Tim Robbins.

Baskin Robbins opened up in 1945, with a gimmick of having 31 different flavors. These are the original 31 flavoes, ranked. Obviously some of this is guesswork, since I haven't eaten all of these flavors (several were discontinued well before I was born). And don't think that just because something is ranked #1 here means that it's my favorite flavor. There are many post-1945 flavors that are a lot better than these.

31. Black Walnut - Walnuts are disgusting trash.

30. Date Nut - I'm not sure, but I have a pretty strong suspicion that this nut was just more gross Walnut.

29. Banana Nut Fudge - I want to like this but again, the nut probably was Walnut. Not sure though, because this was discontinued before I was born. There is apparently a famous story about crazy-ass Howard Hughes ordering 100 gallons of it when it was discontinued so he could have it for the rest of his life.

28. Egg Nog - If Egg Nog doesn't have alcohol in it, it is useless to me.

27. Peppermint Stick - Not a fan of Peppermint ice cream.

26. Green Mint Stick - How is this any different?

25. Peach - I love peach, but fruit ice creams always taste too icy to me and not creamy enough. I'll, of course, make an exception for Orange Sherbet (see later) and Strawberry.

24. Peppermint Fudge Ribbon - Putting a delicious fudge ribbon in peppermint doesn't make it more appealing to me.

23. Maple Nut - Maple is a fine flavor, but I typically like to keep it away from ice cream.

22. Raspberry Sherbet - See above on fruit. By the way, I was today years old when I learned that this is how "sherbet" is spelled. It just looked wrong. I think I have been writing "sherbert" my entire life. The English language is dumb.

21. Lemon Crisp - Meh.

20. Lemon Sherbet - As above.

19. Lemon Custard - The word "custard" makes this marginally better than the other lemons.

18. Coffee Candy - What exactly is coffee candy? Like those hard candies for old people with a coffee flavor? Nobody likes old people candy except for old people. Just get the regular coffee ice cream and skip this.

This is probably mint chocolate, right?

17. Chocolate Mint - How many damn flavors of mint do they need? I used to like this as a kid and don't hate it or anything. It's just nowhere near the top of the list of things that I'd get.

16. Pineapple Sherbet - A Dole Whip is amazing, but I'm not quite sure that this is the same thing as Dole Whip. I'm going to guess no.

15. Cherry Macaroon - I typically like coconut flavors, but I'm not big on macaroons.

14. Butterscotch Ribbon - I'm okay with Butterscotch. This is never going to be anything more than middle of the pack for me though.

13. Burgundy Cherry - But are these cherries certified to be from Burgundy according to the Geographical indications and traditional specialties within European Union law?

12. Strawberry - I'll get strawberry every once and a while. Not my favorite, but okay. Mix it with Vanilla and Chocolate in Neapolitan and now we're talking.

11. Vanilla - Maybe people take "Vanilla" to mean plain, but it's actually really good on its own. There are better Vanillas than the standard Vanilla though.

10. Chocolate Chip - Pretty classic, right? Top 10 status for sure.

9. Vanilla Burnt Almond - This sounds good. Haven't had it - but it HAS To be good. It has Almonds!

8. Chocolate - "Plain" chocolate goes here, because it will be a forever classic.

7. Orange Sherbet - Good. Especially when swirled with vanilla.

6. Chocolate Fudge - Fudge is already chocolate, so this is just overkill. By the way, overkill is AWESOME.

5. French Vanilla - French Vanilla is better than regular Vanilla because you can see those little specks of actual Vanilla bean in it, and it has that great real Vanilla flavor. Good stuff.

4. Chocolate Ribbon - I approve of this wholeheartedly.

3. Coffee - Coffee-flavored ice cream? Yes please.

2. Chocolate Almond - Chocolate is great. Almonds are great. Together, they are like an unstoppable two-lion Voltron. Or a two-Transformer combiner. A Duocon, if you will. Like Battletrap and Flywheels. Nevermind, those guys sucked so it's a bad analogy.

1. Rocky Road - This one is awesome. Weird Al didn't bother to write any songs about those other ice creams.

This was the pinnacle of ice cream in 1945.