Highlights from the 2026 Scooper Bowl

Georgia Osier

Every June, The Jimmy Fund and Dana Farber Cancer Institute hold Boston’s biggest ice cream festival, The Scooper Bowl! With my father’s help, I made it my mission to try to rank every possible flavor.

Unfortunately, given the sheer number of flavors and the limited time given, that was kind of impossible, so instead I’ll be ranking the flavors I did try.

To make things easier, we generally avoided trying flavors we had eaten before the event, and or simple flavors like plain chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, etc that weren’t really worth the effort of giving a flavor profile to.

Without further ado, my complete opinion on some Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl flavors!

The first stall I visited was none other than a local Gloucester business, Holy Cow! Holy Cow had five options to choose from: Ritzy AF, Corner Piece, Mintsanity, Party Animal, and Vegan Coconut Oreo. 

Y’know how I said I avoided flavors I had tried before for the sake of time? I lied. Or, in kinder words, made an exception for Ritzy AF. Despite the god-awful, cringy name, the flavor is undoubtedly tasty. It’s vanilla ice cream mixed with toffee and Ritz crackers, and though I’m sure you’re questioning my mental state reading this, I swear it’s so good!  The mix of savory vanilla ice cream with the salty crackers is a great combination of flavors, It also won the 2024 Ice cream flavor of the year, so I’m obviously not alone in this opinion. Ritzy Af gets 5/5 stars from me.

The other flavor we tried from Holy Cow was Party Animal, which is strawberry ice cream mixed with bits of cookie and sprinkles. The flavor didn’t do anything for me personally. While I feel like Ritzy AF was successfully able to combine multiple flavors into one, yummy cohesive flavor, Party Animal literally just tastes like someone crumbled cookies over strawberry ice cream. The base strawberry ice cream was decent, though, so Party Animal gets a solid 2.5/5 Ranking from me.

The next place we hit was Philadelphia Water Ice, which had Mango, tropical rainbow, lemon, and watermelon Italian ices. I chose lemon, it was very yummy. Not anything crazy, but you’re not expecting anything crazy when you’re eating lemon Italian ice. You’re expecting a slush with a lemon flavor, and that’s exactly what it was. 4/5 stars from me, minus one star for creativity, but it serves the purpose it’s meant to fulfill.

The third booth we went to was Hood’s New England Creamery. The flavors they had were Newport Blueberry Lemonade Crumble, Bear Creek Caramel, Martha’s Vineyard Black Raspberry, and Rhode Island Lighthouse Coffee.

I chose Bear Creek Caramel, and my father got Martha’s Vineyard Black Raspberry. For a relatively simple flavor, Bear Creek Caramel was quite good. Vanilla ice cream with savory caramel and a couple of peanut butters thrown in for good measure. Not the most unique flavor out there, but a yummy one nonetheless. A solid 4/5 stars from me.

While I’m not personally a huge fan of Raspberries, and by proxy, raspberry-flavored things, Martha’s Vineyard Black Raspberry was a very good flavor that accomplished exactly what it set out to do. In my opinion, many fruit-flavored things, especially ice cream, struggle to actually taste like the thing it is emanating from, but this ice cream flavor did not. It tasted like Raspberries, it tasted like ice cream, and it tasted pretty good. A solid 5/5 stars for surprising me with its goodness.

After Hood’s New England Creamery, we went to Hood’s other stand. I don’t know why they had two stands; perhaps they contributed more money than the other sponsors, but that’s besides the point. Hood’s plain stand offered three flavors: Mint Chocolate chunk, golden vanilla, and cookie dough. My dad and I both got Mint Chocolate Chunk. It was pretty good. When I read the name, I figured there would be actual CHUNKS of chocolate in it, but it was just normal chocolate chip ice cream. 3/5 stars for disappointing me with the lack of chocolate chunks. 

Next up was another local company’s stand called Salt and Straw. Salt and Straw offered Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons, Chocolate Gooey Brownie, Birthday Cakes and Blackberries, Strawberry Pretzel Salad, and Vegan Freckled Mint Chocolate Chip.

I got a scoop of Sea Salt with caramel Ribbons, and my dad chose Chocolate gooey brownie. The caramel in the Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons was very rich and savory. It tasted almost like something you would find in an expensive, high-quality candy store rather than a thing of ice cream. I was pleasantly surprised by how good a simple flavor could be. 5/5 stars from me.

Chocolate Gooey Brownie was chocolate ice cream with a brownie in it. The brownie wasn’t very gooey in my opinion. Just a chunk of normal, very solid, not gooey brownie. Still a very delicious brownie, but not gooey. 4/5 stars, minus 1 star for lying to me about the gooey-ness of the brownie. 

Next up was Bliss. They had Vanilla Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip, Dirty Water, Extreme Chocolate, Vanilla Sundae Waffle Cone, and Goo Lagoon.

I got Goo Lagoon. On account of this ice cream being green, I expected it to be a mint or matcha flavor of some sort. I was wrong. It was vanilla cake, better flavored with vanilla chips and chocolate chip cookie dough mixed in. I have no idea why this flavor exists. A cake batter and cookie dough ice cream doesn’t sound half bad, but why is it green?? It was just OK and the color did not coordinate with the taste, which just threw me off even more. 1/5 stars.

My dad got Dirty Water. What’s with Bliss ice cream flavors and sounding like inedible things I would never want to put in my mouth? It was an extremely bitter coffee ice cream that tasted barely like ice cream, and almost 100% like dry coffee beans dumped in a lump of frozen milk. Despite my dislike of coffee, I can usually still find the appeal of a subtle coffee flavor in treats, but not even dedicated coffee drinkers want to consume pure coffee grinds. 1/5 stars.

Edy’s booth had plain Chocolate, Espresso Chip, and Oreo mini bars. I had chocolate, and my dad got an espresso chip. Plain chocolate was fine, 3/5 stars, plain but did what it needed to do. Expresso chip was a solid 4/5, yummy, and had a nice coffee taste without feeling like you were eating straight coffee grind like Dirty Water from Bliss. 

The next booth we visited was Friendly’s, which offered Forbidden Chocolate, Red, White, and Blueberry, Carnival Cotton Candy, and Superhero Bars.

I tried Red, White, and Blueberry, while my dad tried Carnival cotton Candy. Red, WHite, and Blueberry is vanilla, strawberry, and blueberry ice cream with little pieces of blueberry in it. Though I liked the concept, and the ice cream itself was quite good, the blueberries in it were so sour I thought a foreign object had landed in my ice cream. 3/5 stars, minus one star for sourness.

Carnival cotton candy was just basic cotton candy ice cream, nothing out of the ordinary. I’m not personally a fan of cotton candy flavor, but it tasted decent to me. 3/5 stars.

The last ice cream stall we hit was Ben & Jerry’s, which had Half Baked, Cherry Garcia, Honey Graham Latte, and Non-Dairy Key Lime Pie.

My dad chose Honey Graham Latte, and I got a scoop of Half Baked. Half Baked was chocolate and vanilla ice cream mixed with pieces of brownie batter and cookie batter. I thought it was delicious, probably the second-favorite flavor I tried that day. 5/5 stars

Now, the next flavor we tried, Honey Graham Latte, was a peculiar-tasting flavor, and not in a good way. I’m not really sure who thought that mixing graham crackers and ice cream would be a good idea. I mean, a s’more’s flavor I could almost get, but just straight-up graham crackers? It was thick, crunchy, and dry, somehow. I disliked it. My dad hated it so much that he threw it out without taking another bite. 1/5 stars.

We finished off the festival by getting popsicles from the Johnny Pop stand. They only offered one flavor, tropical paradise punch, but it was a good flavor, so I can’t complain. 4/5 stars. I refused to get anything from the Melona Popsicle stand, as I tried one of their popsicles at last year’s Scooper bowl. It was a strange, unique flavor I would not willingly try again. 2/5 stars.

My top three flavors of the day were Ritzy AF, from Holy Cow, Martha’s Vineyard Black Raspberry from Hood’s New England Creamery, and Half Baked from Ben and Jerry’s.   

The three day ice cream festival was a great time, and if you want to support cancer funding while enjoying a sweet treat, consider attending the 2027 Scooper Bowl next year!