Van Leeuwen's New Ice Cream Flavor Is Inspired By 'Knives Out'

If you've noticed a vibe shift in your grocery store's ice cream freezer in the past few years, you're not alone. Several household-name ice cream brands have taken to bolstering their classic flavors — strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla — with trendy ingredients that were once reserved for pastry displays and small-batch market purveyors. Take Tillamook, which shook up its century-old legacy in 2021 with a line of "frozen custards" in flavors like "Sea Salt & Honeycomb Toffee."

According to Brooklyn Magazine's Gabe Friedman, New York-based ice cream company Van Leeuwen may be to thank for introducing flavors like honeycomb and earl grey into popular rotation. The brand, founded in 2008 by brothers Ben and Pete Van Leeuwen and Laura O'Neill, was also a pioneer in vegan ice cream that didn't compromise on taste, making it the "envied standard bearer for tasty dairy-free alternatives," per Friedman.

To keep up with the times (which is to say, to keep up with itself), Van Leeuwen has put out a series of flavors with some unlikely collaborators. For example, in June 2022, the brand teamed up with Grey Poupon for a limited-edition Dijon mustard creation, per Food & Wine. Now, the brand is ready for another surprise. Today, December 12, brings a mysterious new flavor inspired by "Glass Onion," the Netflix sequel to Rian Johnson's 2019 mystery "Knives Out" that hits the streaming platform on December 23 (per IndieWire).

In collaboration with Netflix, Van Leeuwen is getting "Knives Out" fans ready for the December 23 streaming premiere of "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" with a limited-edition pint that "takes your taste buds on as many twists and turns as the movie itself," per press materials shared with The Daily Meal. With a base of the brand's classic French vanilla ice cream, the new flavor features Greek yogurt (a nod to the film's Mediterranean setting), a glass-like honeycomb candy, and a swirl of bourbon and caramelized onion jam. 

If you need some convincing to try an ice cream flavor with onion in it, perhaps watching the reactions of "Glass Onion" stars like Kate Hudson and Leslie Odom Jr. will spark your appetite. When that time comes, you can stop by your nearest Van Leeuwen scoop shop in New York or LA, or you order a pint or two online for nationwide shipping. You can also find the flavor in Van Leeuwen scoop trucks in Union Square on December 23, or — if you want to go all out — the Glass Onion Live Experience in LA on December 16.