Salt & Straw's 2024 Halloween Ice Creams, Ranked

Seasonal ice cream flavors are nothing new, but Halloween-specific flavors that incorporate pumpkin, candy, and even real crickets? That definitely has our attention. Salt & Straw, a Portland, Oregon-based ice cream company perhaps best known for its opulent, craft, and often nonconventional ice cream flavors, is at it again with its lineup of 2024 Halloween flavors. These five flavors range from the delicious but expected chocolate-laden Candycopia to the intriguing and abstract Essence of Ghost to the straight-up scary Creepy Crawly Critters, which is riddled with real crickets and mealworms. The final two flavors in the lineup include the more neutral Blackberry Tamales and the October-requisite Jack o' Lantern Pumpkin Bread.

Needless to say, the flavors had me intrigued from the moment I read the descriptions, but are they any good? I've tried each of Salt & Straw's Halloween ice creams and have ranked them from worst to best, largely considering flavor but also keeping an open mind to those that impressed me by being particularly festive or on theme with the holiday. Should you decide you want to try the Halloween lineup, keep in mind that the flavors are only available through the holiday. 

Some recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

When I first opened up the pint of Salt & Straw's Essence of Ghost flavor, I immediately wanted to love it based on sheer visual coolness alone. Before I scooped any out, the ice cream looked mostly black with hints of white in the middle, the essence of the ghost perhaps, and once I got to scooping, the ice cream ultimately had a really interesting black and white marbled look going on. Of course, there's much more to ice cream than just looks, and unfortunately, Essence of Ghost really missed the mark in the flavor department. 

According to Salt & Straw's product description, Essence of Ghost is meant to be a "combination of a light, airy sherbet and dense, rich chocolate ice cream," infused with scotch for even more intensity. The brand does also note "wisps of intense black licorice chocolate ice cream," and unfortunately for those black licorice haters out there, that's pretty much the only flavor I picked up on. I'm not even someone who vehemently hates black licorice, but when it comes to ice cream, it's just not a first, second, third, or even 20th flavor choice. Though this ice cream was supposed to boast other flavor profiles, the black licorice was far too overpowering for me to pick up on any nuance. Ultimately, if you really love black licorice, then this might just be the flavor for you. For me (and I suspect many others), it left me wishing I'd avoided this ghostly encounter altogether.

As a fan of both blackberries and tamales, I was certainly intrigued to see how the two might come together in ice cream form. This Día de los Muertos-inspired ice cream channels the tamale flavor by incorporating both masa harina and masa cornbread crumbles into the ice cream, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much that classic corn and dough flavor came through. Notably, this ice cream is also a vegan option; it's made with coconut cream and vegan butter and, expectedly, has more of a sorbet texture than an ice cream one.

My biggest complaint with the Blackberry Tamales flavor was that there wasn't much blackberry (or fruitiness at all) at play. When I took my first bite, I was overwhelmed by how surprisingly savory the ice cream was; while I found the savoriness to be unique and enjoyable, I was waiting for some sweeter notes of blackberry or even coconut to come through. And, ultimately, I found the texture of this one to be pretty subpar amid a sea of rich and creamy classic ice creams, but I do appreciate that Salt & Straw included a vegan option in the lineup.

Unlike Essence of Ghost, which I'd argue is completely skippable, Blackberry Tamale is not a bad flavor by any means. In such a stacked lineup, however, it just didn't stand out enough compared to the other options.

There's nothing that screams Halloween more than a plethora of chocolate and candy bars, and The Great Candycopia captures that essence in a truly delicious way. Instead of simply incorporating classic candy bars like Reese's, Snickers, Heath, and Kit-Kats, Salt & Straw instead took inspiration from such candy classics, incorporating homemade versions of said bars into this ice cream. The result is a smorgasbord of chocolaty goodness, with hints of peanut butter and even toffee, all mixed into a butterscotch ice cream since vanilla would just be too plain here.

I really don't have much bad to say about The Great Candycopia, and I love how all of the chocolaty, nutty flavors come together into something incredibly cohesive and devilishly decadent. If I do have one complaint, it's that I wish there were bigger chunks of the homemade candy throughout the ice cream; while each bite does feature candy, the chunks are super small. Some big bites of chocolate would have boosted this flavor up at least one spot in this ranking, but for what it's worth, candy lovers will not find fault with this nostalgic flavor. 

Despite not being a particularly huge fan of mealworms or crickets when they're alive, I was nonetheless pretty stoked to try Salt & Straw's Creepy Crawly Critters flavor. I've never eaten insects before, so I was a bit nervous do so, but I also found those nerves to be quite apt for tasting a Halloween-inspired ice cream. Boasting a matcha flavor with chocolate-coated crickets and toffee mealworms, Creepy Crawly Critters definitely delivered on the critters, and in the most delicious way possible.

I'm a big fan of matcha ice cream, so I knew that the base flavor would likely be a winner for me no matter what, and I had trouble picturing how flavors of chocolate and toffee wouldn't pair well. This ice cream was super cohesive, with the matcha being sweet and earthy, the chocolate crickets being crunchy and rich, and the mealworms offering nice notes of toffee. For what it's worth, I was never really able to distinguish that I was eating bugs, as the crickets just tasted really chocolaty and crunchy and the mealworms sort of just blended into the ice cream. But I'd say this is a good thing, so even those who are a bit hesitant about eating bugs can get in on the practice, one that's been happening around the world for centuries.

Would this really be a list of Halloween ice cream flavors if pumpkin didn't make an appearance at some point? Taking the top spot is none other than Salt & Straw's Jack o' Lantern Pumpkin Bread flavor, which is a master class in decadent pumpkin ice cream through and through. This isn't just a pumpkin or pumpkin spice product, this is a pumpkin bread flavor, so that means that you're getting actual chunks of the baked good throughout the pint, along with swirls of cream cheese frosting to really seal the deal. 

While pumpkin is obviously a key component in this ice cream, I appreciated the fact that there was more at play than just the pumpkin alone. This ice cream was super spiced, with strong notes of cinnamon and ginger adding to the autumnal feel, and the chunks of actual bread (which were essentially more like cake) were simply irresistible. I get it, I get it, pumpkin tends to be overdone in the fall, and even I suffer from pumpkin fatigue after a certain point. But this pumpkin bread ice cream single-handedly revitalized my love for the orange gourd, proving that the ingredient really does reign supreme for fall and Halloween treats alike.

When it came to ranking Salt & Straw's Halloween ice cream lineup, naturally, flavor was the key component. These are pretty complex ice creams, however, so it wasn't as simple as ranking one first on the basis of liking chocolate ice cream; a big part of it came down to how well all of the flavors worked together in a given pint. In Essence of Ghost, for example, I really only picked up on black licorice notes, despite the fact that it was supposed to taste like both vanilla and chocolate. On the other hand, Jack o' Lantern Pumpkin Bread cohesively combined pumpkin bread, spices, and cream cheese icing into an ice cream that was incredibly balanced and delicious with every bite.

I also considered how well each ice cream fit into the seasonal theme of Halloween. Again, there was nothing about Essence of Ghost that was particularly Halloween-inspired other than the name; same with Blackberry Tamales, other than the abstract nod toward Día de los Muertos. Flavors like Creepy Crawly Critters and The Great Candycopia, on the other hand, really captured the essence of Halloween in a unique and fun way, making them slightly more deserving of higher slots in the ranking.