The Peppermint Ice Cream Brand You Should Leave In The Freezer Aisle

Peppermint ice cream is one of those every season kinda treats. It's the perfect flavor for winter, the perfect temperature for summer, and an all-around refreshing sugary snack for a great pick-me-up. You can make your own peppermint ice cream at home, sure, but there are so many ready to eat options in your local freezer aisle. The biggest question is: which one should grace your cart? Well, we took some of the guesswork out by ranking ten store-bought peppermint ice cream brands. One of our conclusions? If you only have the money to buy one pint, then you should swerve Blue Bunny's Peppermint Stick ice cream and go for something else.

Now, this isn't to say this is a bad option. Peppermint ice cream has such a distinct flavor that it's kind of hard to mess it up to the point that it's unpalatable, in my humble opinion. But as a peppermint ice cream brand, Blue Bunny falls a little flat, especially in comparison to the other choices on this list. Go for our number one choice (that's Graeter's Peppermint Stick) for a truly creamy, decadent, French pot press experience. Blue Bunny's Peppermint Stick ice cream wins some points for bringing in some Friendly's-shaped nostalgia, but it tragically can't hold a candle to a competitor like that.

Let's get down to it and really dismantle why Blue Bunny ended up at the bottom of our ranking. Just to reiterate, we're not saying it's bad. Far from it! If you go to the store and it's cleared out everything but Blue Bunny, you aren't going to be hurting. But there are two primary problems here. First: texture. A peppermint stick ice cream does well with a few bursts of crunchy candy scattered throughout the mix. Blue Bunny has a dense but smooth texture, so it'd be nice to have a few pops of something different to break up the monotony. Tragically, the peppermint pieces mixed in are more for decoration than texture. You can hardly pick up on them at all.

The second issue boils down to a very small flaw in the flavor profile. There's a slightly grainy aftertaste to this ice cream, probably from a filler. This mix of wheat and corn doesn't get drowned out fully even by the strong flavors of peppermint and vanilla, and it unfortunately doesn't play nicely with the peppermint profile. But in the end, it's pretty easy to overlook. You should definitely nab a higher end peppermint ice cream brand if you're able, but in a pinch? Blue Bunny's Peppermint Stick does the job just fine.