Where to Buy Licorice Ice Cream: Brands, Stores and Near Me

AvatarByEric Dawson Candy & Chocolate

Licorice ice cream is easier to buy than its reputation suggests. Grocery chains including Albertsons and Lunds and Byerlys stock it in the freezer aisle, Instacart carries at least seven brands for same-day delivery, and Goldbelly ships frozen packs anywhere in the country. Bridgeman’s, Chocolate Shoppe, Wilcoxson’s, Umpqua Dairy, Whidbey Island, Cascade Glacier and Pride Dairy all make a version as of September 2026. Expect $3.00 to $6.00 for a scoop at a parlor and $10.00 to $20.00 or more for a pint bought online, before shipping. Availability swings hard by region, so the fastest route is usually a delivery app search followed by a call to a local scoop shop.

Where to Buy Licorice Ice Cream Right Now

Three routes cover almost every situation. A grocery chain near you may already carry it, a delivery app can find it in stores you would never think to check, and a mail-order marketplace will ship frozen tubs to a doorstep in any state. Which one makes sense depends on how fast you want it and how much you are willing to spend on freight.

Grocery Chains That Stock It

Albertsons carries Wilcoxson’s Black Licorice Ice Cream and offers it for delivery or Drive Up and Go pickup as of September 2026. Lunds and Byerlys, the Minnesota chain, stocks Bridgeman’s Licorice Ice Cream. Beyond those two confirmed listings, Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s are worth a look because both lean on local and seasonal suppliers, though neither publishes a national licorice ice cream product, so treat them as a maybe rather than a plan.

Delivery Apps and Same-Day Pickup

Instacart is the single most productive place to look. Shoppers there can reach Bridgeman’s, Chocolate Shoppe, Wilcoxson’s, Umpqua Dairy, Whidbey Island, Cascade Glacier and Pride Dairy licorice ice cream as of September 2026, because the app pulls from dozens of regional grocers and specialty stores rather than one chain. Delivery can land in as fast as an hour, and curbside or in-store pickup is available where the store supports it. Fees start at $3.99 on orders over $35.

DoorDash handles local delivery from the Bridgeman’s location in Woodbury, Minnesota, and Uber Eats lists a Bridgeman’s Ice Cream Tub from select stores. Neither app ships beyond its normal radius, so both only help if a stocking store already sits close to you.

Nationwide Shipping by Mail

Goldbelly is the one channel that works regardless of geography. Bridgeman’s sells a Licorice Lovers Ice Cream Pack of three tubs there for nationwide delivery as of September 2026, and USA Today named the company’s licorice ice cream one of the best regional ice creams you can have delivered. Sugar Hill Creamery in Harlem, New York, ships a four-pint box of its black licorice flavor, called The Darkest Timeline, through the same marketplace.

Bridgeman’s also takes orders through its own Square storefront, which routes nationwide shipping to Goldbelly and leaves local pickup at the parlor counter. Shipping frozen product is the expensive part of any of these orders, and every source that mentions the cost describes it as substantial.

Which Brands Make Licorice Ice Cream

Eight producers make licorice ice cream, led by Bridgeman’s, Chocolate Shoppe, Wilcoxson’s and Sugar Hill Creamery, and sold across grocery listings, delivery apps and mail-order marketplaces. Sizes vary wildly, from an 11.78 fluid ounce cup to a three-gallon food service tub, so matching the format to your situation matters as much as picking a brand.

Brand Origin What It Is Sizes Where to Buy
Bridgeman’s Duluth, Minnesota Vanilla with black licorice chips 48 fl oz Lunds and Byerlys, Instacart, Goldbelly, DoorDash, own site
Chocolate Shoppe Madison, Wisconsin Rich, creamy black licorice flavor 1 pint Own online shop, Instacart
Wilcoxson’s Montana Black licorice flavored 1 pint, 11.78 fl oz Albertsons, Instacart
Umpqua Dairy Not stated Licorice flavor 3 gallon Instacart
Whidbey Island Not stated Licorice flavor 16 oz Instacart
Cascade Glacier Not stated Licorice flavor 3 gallon Instacart, Chef’s Store
Pride Dairy Not stated Black licorice flavor 64 oz Instacart
Sugar Hill Creamery Harlem, New York The Darkest Timeline black licorice 4 pints Goldbelly

Bridgeman’s Licorice Ice Cream

Bridgeman’s runs out of Duluth, Minnesota, and its version is vanilla ice cream studded with black licorice chips rather than a fully licorice-flavored base. That construction matters if you dislike an all-over anise hit, because the vanilla carries most of the volume and the chips deliver the flavor in bursts. A 48 fluid ounce tub is the standard retail size. One customer review from 2018 said the recipe still tasted like the original from 40 years earlier, which is a reasonable signal that the formula has not drifted.

Chocolate Shoppe Black Licorice

Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream has been making ice cream in Madison, Wisconsin, since 1962 using real cane sugar and Wisconsin milk. Its black licorice pint is described on the company shop as rich, creamy and luxurious, balanced with the right amount of sweetness, and the listing is Kosher certified. Pricing sits at $12.00 per pint as of September 2026, though the flavor showed as sold out at that time. Anyone who wants it should either check the shop again later or hunt for the brand through Instacart, where regional grocers sometimes still hold stock.

Wilcoxson’s Black Licorice Ice Cream

Wilcoxson’s is a Montana dairy, and its black licorice comes in a one-pint size and an 11.78 fluid ounce cup as of September 2026. Albertsons is the confirmed retail home for it, which makes this the easiest brand to buy in person if an Albertsons banner store operates in your area. Instacart carries it as well.

Regional Dairies Sold in Bulk

Four more producers appear on Instacart in sizes aimed at food service rather than a home freezer. Umpqua Dairy and Cascade Glacier both list licorice ice cream in three-gallon tubs, Pride Dairy offers a 64 ounce container of black licorice, and Whidbey Island Ice Cream sells a 16 ounce size. Only the Whidbey Island and Pride Dairy formats make sense for a household. Three gallons works out to 384 fluid ounces, or roughly 96 half-cup scoops, which is party or potluck territory rather than a weeknight dessert.

Sugar Hill Creamery and Small-Batch Makers

Sugar Hill Creamery operates in Harlem, New York, and sells its black licorice flavor under the name The Darkest Timeline in a four-pint Goldbelly box. Small scoop shops and artisanal makers rotate seasonal flavors constantly, which is why a licorice option can appear for a few weeks and then vanish. Scandinavian and European import grocers are a second overlooked source, since licorice is a staple flavor across Scandinavia in a way it never became in the United States.

Where Each Brand Is Sold Region by Region

Licorice ice cream producers cluster in four parts of the country: the Upper Midwest, Montana and the Mountain West, the Pacific Northwest, and pockets of the East Coast and the Plains, and a shopper outside those clusters is almost always going to end up mail ordering.

The Upper Midwest

Minnesota and Wisconsin form the strongest region by a wide margin. Bridgeman’s operates out of Duluth and sells through Lunds and Byerlys, its own parlors, DoorDash from the Woodbury store, and Uber Eats from select locations. Chocolate Shoppe has been in Madison since 1962 and sells its black licorice pint direct. Shoppers in the Twin Cities or southern Wisconsin have the shortest path to a tub of anyone in the country.

Montana and the Mountain West

Wilcoxson’s is the Montana entry, and Albertsons is its retail partner. Because Albertsons operates a wide banner family across the western states, this is the brand most likely to turn up in a conventional supermarket freezer outside the Midwest. Pints and 11.78 fluid ounce cups are the sizes to look for.

The Pacific Northwest

Umpqua Dairy, Cascade Glacier and Whidbey Island Ice Cream all appear on Instacart with licorice products. Two of those three sell only in three-gallon food service tubs, which points to scoop shops and institutional buyers rather than home freezers. Whidbey Island’s 16 ounce size is the one a household can actually finish.

The East Coast and the Plains

Sugar Hill Creamery covers New York from Harlem, shipping The Darkest Timeline in four-pint boxes through Goldbelly. Pride Dairy, a smaller operation, lists a 64 ounce black licorice size on Instacart. Outside those two, the eastern half of the country depends on mail order or on an independent parlor running licorice as a seasonal flavor.

How Much Licorice Ice Cream Costs

A scoop at a local parlor runs $3.00 to $6.00, and a pint bought online from a regional retailer runs $10.00 to $20.00 or more before shipping, the range published prices confirm as of September 2026. Prices are otherwise thin for this flavor, which is normal for regional dairy products sold through a patchwork of retailers.

  • Scoop at a local ice cream parlor: $3.00 to $6.00
  • Pint bought online from a regional retailer: $10.00 to $20.00 or more, before shipping
  • Chocolate Shoppe black licorice pint: $12.00, listed as sold out in September 2026
  • Instacart delivery fee: from $3.99 on orders over $35

A Worked Example for a Pint Delivered

Say you want one pint at home this week and a stocking store already exists nearby. A $12.00 pint on Instacart will not clear the $35 threshold on its own, so the order needs padding or it carries a higher delivery fee. Adding two more pints at $12.00 each brings the basket to $36.00, clears the threshold, and puts the delivery fee at $3.99. Total lands near $39.99 before tax, service fee and tip, which works out to about $13.33 a pint delivered.

Compare that with a Goldbelly order. Mail order adds insulated packaging and frozen freight on top of the product price, so a three-tub pack lands well above the per-pint math above. That premium buys availability rather than value, which is the trade whenever no local store carries the flavor.

I would start with a scoop at a local parlor before ordering a pint online. At $3 to $6, a scoop is the lower-risk way to decide whether the strong black licorice profile is one you want more of. An online pint costs $10 to $20 or more before shipping, so even the low end is roughly twice the price of the priciest scoop. Mail order makes sense when local options are gone, but it is not the value choice for a first taste.

How to Find Black Licorice Ice Cream Near Me

Searching well beats searching often. Most people type the flavor into one app, see nothing, and conclude it is unavailable, when the real problem is that store inventory feeds are keyed to specific product names rather than to a flavor category.

Searching Instacart Step by Step

  1. Set the store first. Open Instacart, tap the store selector at the top of the screen, and pick a regional grocer instead of leaving the app on its default. Licorice ice cream lives in regional chains, not national ones.
  2. Search the brand, not the flavor. Try Wilcoxson’s, Bridgeman’s, Chocolate Shoppe, Umpqua, Whidbey Island, Cascade Glacier and Pride Dairy one at a time.
  3. Then search the flavor two ways. Enter licorice ice cream, then black licorice ice cream. Product titles differ by brand, and only one phrasing may match.
  4. Check the frozen category by hand. Open Frozen, then Ice Cream, and scroll rather than relying on the search box.
  5. Repeat for two or three other stores. Availability is per store, not per app, so one empty result proves very little.

If a Search Returns Nothing

Zero results in one app rarely means the flavor is gone. Switch stores inside the same app before switching apps, because the catalog is store-specific and a miss at one grocer says nothing about the grocer two miles away. Widen the delivery radius in settings where the app allows it.

Calling a Local Scoop Shop

Independent parlors are the most likely place to find licorice on a cone, and they are close to invisible to grocery search. Rotating seasonal boards mean a shop that has never listed licorice online may still be churning it this month. Ask two things when you call: whether licorice is in the current rotation, and whether the shop can pack a hand-packed pint or quart to go.

Scandinavian delis, Dutch import shops and Nordic bakeries deserve a call for the same reason. Licorice sits at the center of the confectionery tradition in those countries, so an importer is far more likely to stock a licorice frozen dessert than a mainstream supermarket is.

What to Do When No Local Store Carries It

Four moves are left, roughly in order of cost: order through Goldbelly, ask a grocery manager to special order it, split a food service tub with others, or make it at home with licorice extract or candy folded into a vanilla base. That gap is a common outcome outside Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana and the Pacific Northwest, where most of these dairies operate.

  1. Order through Goldbelly. Bridgeman’s three-tub Licorice Lovers pack and Sugar Hill Creamery’s four-pint box both ship nationwide, and this is the only route that ignores geography entirely.
  2. Ask a grocery manager to special order it. Chains that already carry one of these brands somewhere in the system can often bring in a case, and Albertsons carrying Wilcoxson’s is the lever to mention.
  3. Split a food service tub. A three-gallon Umpqua Dairy or Cascade Glacier tub is impractical alone but reasonable across a block party, a potluck or an office freezer.
  4. Make it at home. Licorice extract or chopped soft licorice candy folded into a vanilla base reproduces the Bridgeman’s construction closely, since that product is vanilla with licorice chips rather than a licorice custard.

Why Availability Changes Month to Month

Licorice is a polarizing flavor, and dairies treat it as a specialty run rather than a core line. Chocolate Shoppe markets its version to devoted licorice enthusiasts instead of a general audience, which is an honest read of the market. Small production runs sell out, restock slowly, and sometimes skip a season entirely, so a sold out listing in September is not the same as a discontinued product.

What Licorice Ice Cream Actually Tastes Like

Two very different products share the name. A chip style, like Bridgeman’s, is vanilla ice cream with black licorice pieces mixed through, so the base stays mild and the licorice arrives in bites. Flavored bases, like the Chocolate Shoppe pint, carry anise through the whole container and read much stronger.

Color is not a reliable guide either. Bridgeman’s is a pale vanilla base with dark chips through it, while a fully flavored pint runs far darker, so two tubs labeled almost the same way can look nothing alike on a shelf. Reading the product description beats judging by the photograph.

Who Tends to Like It

Chocolate Shoppe is blunt about its audience, pitching the flavor at devoted black licorice fans rather than at a crowd. Serving it to a mixed group without warning tends to go badly, so a second flavor alongside it is a sensible hedge. Household preference is worth testing with a single pint before anyone commits to a three-gallon tub.

A Note on Ingredients and Diet

Ingredient panels differ by producer, and the details are worth a look before buying in volume. Chocolate Shoppe’s black licorice pint is Kosher certified and made with real cane sugar and Wisconsin milk, according to the company’s own shop listing. Licorice root extract and anise flavoring are not the same thing, so anyone with a dietary restriction or a health condition should read the panel and check with a doctor before making licorice products a regular habit.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I Get Licorice Ice Cream Shipped to My State?

Yes. Goldbelly ships frozen licorice ice cream nationwide, including the Bridgeman’s Licorice Lovers pack of three tubs and Sugar Hill Creamery’s four-pint box of The Darkest Timeline, as of September 2026. Frozen freight is charged on top of the product price, so budget for it before you fill a cart.

Is Black Licorice Ice Cream the Same as Licorice Ice Cream?

Usually, though not always. Producers use the two names loosely, and the real difference is construction rather than the label, since Bridgeman’s sells vanilla with black licorice chips while Chocolate Shoppe and Wilcoxson’s sell a licorice-flavored base. Reading the product description tells you which one is in the tub.

Why Is Licorice Ice Cream Hard to Find?

Licorice divides people, so most dairies run it as a limited specialty batch instead of a permanent line. Small runs sell out quickly and restock unpredictably, which is why the Chocolate Shoppe pint was listed as sold out in September 2026. Regional dairies in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana and the Pacific Northwest account for most of the supply, so availability drops sharply outside those areas.

Can a Grocery Store Order It for Me?

It is worth asking, especially at a chain that already carries one of these brands somewhere in its system. Albertsons stocks Wilcoxson’s black licorice, so a special order request at an Albertsons banner store has a real chance of working. Independent grocers with a local dairy relationship are often even more flexible.

What Sizes Does Licorice Ice Cream Come In?

Retail sizes run from an 11.78 fluid ounce Wilcoxson’s cup and a 16 ounce Whidbey Island tub up to the Bridgeman’s 48 fluid ounce container and Pride Dairy’s 64 ounce size. Pints are the common format for Chocolate Shoppe and Wilcoxson’s. Umpqua Dairy and Cascade Glacier sell three-gallon food service tubs meant for scoop shops and large gatherings.

Start with a delivery app search across two or three regional grocers, since that single step covers the most brands for the least effort. Failing that, a phone call to an independent scoop shop finds what no grocery catalog will, and Goldbelly closes the gap when geography is the whole problem. Prices stay modest at a counter and climb steeply by mail, so the decision usually comes down to how far you are willing to go for a flavor most freezers skip.

What This Page Does Not Publish

  • I do not map every local scoop shop, so call ahead before making a trip.
  • I do not list live stock or delivery coverage, since both can change by store and address.
  • I do not name a best brand, because licorice preferences are personal.

References

Author Profile

Eric Dawson
Eric Dawson
I'm Eric Dawson, the writer behind The Money Watch. I live in the Columbus, Ohio area and I write about the ordinary questions that turn out to be complicated: computers, shopping, food, travel, parking, small businesses, fees, rules and products. Every article starts with the official page, the maker or the agency, then the sources that check it, and I say plainly where they disagree and what I would do. More about how I work is on the About page.