Vermont is beautiful, but more importantly, the Ben and Jerry’s factory is there.

The place has a cheerful, playful vibe. You can take the tour, see the stuff being made, and get a free sample of the day’s batch. Our day was Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream day. Not bad, but it’s no Cherry Garcia.

I was hoping for Coffee Heath Bar Crunch.

Some of the top-ten best sellers surprised me:

1. Cherry Garcia
2. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
3. Chunky Monkey
4. Chocolate Fudge Brownie
5. Half Baked
6. New York Super Fudge Chunk
7. Phish Food
8. Coffee Heath Bar Crunch
9. Peanut Butter Cup
10. Vanilla

It astonished me that a banana ice cream can break the top five.

My favorite part was the flavor graveyard out back, a monument to the 200 different flavors that died.

Some were unpopular, some were discontinued because a key ingredient got too expensive, and some were just kind of bad.

Each headstone has a fun little poem:

Now they’ve made it possible for people to request the revival of their discontinued favorites. You can see the list of the 200 dead flavors and make your case here:

https://secure.benjerry.com/contact-us/resurrect.cfm

Bring back Rum Raisin!