Vanilla Ice Cream

HAVE YOU EVER met anyone who doesn’t like vanilla ice cream? Neither have we. Vanilla ice cream is a classic, but it’s also the purest expression of ice cream—there’s nowhere for inferiority to hide. So which product is best?

We selected eight top-selling nationally available brands (including Blue Bell, which is sold in stores in only about 20 states but can be ordered by phone) and started sorting through all their varieties: “vanilla bean,” “original vanilla,” “homemade vanilla,” “French vanilla,” and just plain “vanilla.” We tasted 17 different products to find one from each brand to include in our final taste test.

In almost every case, we preferred products labeled “French” or “homemade” vanilla to those labeled “vanilla bean.” While