How An Insult Led To The Creation Of This Baskin-Robbins Flavor
Sometimes, insults make you cry. Other times, they inspire you to create delicious new flavors of ice cream — at least if you're a dairy devotee like Burt Baskin, the late co-founder of Baskin-Robbins. The brand's history has it that, when a young customer talked smack about the ice cream chain's unusual flavors, Baskin responded not by giving him a cold cone right in the face, but a big kudos for inspiring a brand new addition to the 31 flavors.
According to a 1985 Los Angeles Times article, a boy once said to Baskin, "My god, I've never seen so many flavors. The people who think of these flavors must be plumb nuts." Baskin responded by handing him a certificate and saying, "Congratulations. You've just invented a new flavor." Thus, Plum Nuts, a blend of vanilla ice cream, walnuts, and plums, was born. The storied scene would have happened sometime between 1945, when the chain was founded as the Snowbird Ice Cream Store, and 1967, the year that Baskin died (via Los Angeles Times).
How Baskin-Robbins flavors we know today were inspired by real-life events
Plum Nuts might not be as easy to find these days in Baskin-Robbins' ever-rotating selection of flavors. Since its 1945 inception, Baskin-Robbins has developed more than 1,000 flavors in its ice cream arsenal, according to its website. This means that some are bound to get lost in the mix.
Several of these flavors were inspired by Burt Baskin's and his co-founder, Irv Robbins', memories, both personal anecdotes and historical events. Indeed, many of them are still available today. Baseball Nut (made with a vanilla base enhanced by cashews and black raspberry) was invented in 1957, when the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Times. The legendary, top-selling Pralines 'n Cream, on the other hand, was inspired by Robbins' trip to New Orleans with his wife, where they mixed souvenir pralines with vanilla ice cream and caramel. As for the future of Baskin-Robbins flavor? What comes next just depends on historical events and pop culture icons, the brand says.