7 US Presidents And Their Favorite Ice Cream Flavors

Those of us who follow food history know that it pretty much intersects everything. Science. Politics. Culture. As it turns out, American presidential history pretty much intersects everything, too. And sometimes, when you merge those two subjects together into one overarching theme, like, say, U.S. presidents, past and present, and their favorite ice cream flavors, you learn about more than just who might have liked chocolate ice cream and who didn't.

Take Barack Obama. It's reported that after having had a summer job as an ice cream server, he can no longer abide the fluffy cold stuff. And yet, Ben & Jerry's created an ice cream flavor, "Yes, Pecan!" inspired by the former president's "Yes, we can!" campaign. Or how about Ronald Reagan? Such was his love of ice cream that he declared July as "National Ice Cream Month." Given how much Reagan loved chocolate, it's probably a safe bet to assume that a rich and creamy chocolate ice cream, like what you can whip up yourself with just three ingredients, was his favorite. And yet, no official record exists that confirms this assumption. And then there's James Madison, who, by some accounts, tried, and possibly liked, oyster ice cream. Not even kidding.

And those examples only represent the presidents who didn't have a declared favorite flavor. The real story of presidential ice cream preferences goes all the way back to America's founding. Read on for a closer look at the preferred flavors of ice cream for seven U.S. presidents. You'll learn what it took to keep their cold pantries stocked with it, including the science, cultural influences, and sometimes, plain grit, behind it all.

In the modern world, having a steady supply of ice cream in the freezer ain't no thang. That's why the fact that America's first president loved fruit-flavored ice cream isn't quite as impressive as the fact that he had access to it at all. Most Average Joes didn't get ice cream (or ice creem, as it was called during that era), due to how labor- and cost-intensive it was to make. 

To produce ice cream in the late 1700s, ice had to be hewn from a frozen river and saved in an ice house for months. However, it wasn't until the spring when cows produced milk (and cream could be made from it) that the ice could be used to make the frozen dairy dessert. And let's not forget about sugar. Both the cost of the cow and the cost of the sugar equaled a pretty penny back in the day, and plenty of both were necessary to make ice cream. 

Then there's the physics of ice cream to consider. The freezing point of water –- 32 degrees Fahrenheit -– is not the freezing point of milk. That's too warm. Because of this, homemade ice cream requires a lot of churning to melt the ice, which is usually mixed with rock salt, to make the dessert. A president wouldn't have time for such a task. It would have taken a staff of servants, or enslaved persons, in Washington's case, to churn milk and sugar until the ingredients froze enough to eat. In other words, Washington's fruit-flavored homemade ice cream was a wealthy person's dish that few could enjoy, let alone produce without help.

In life, the things we write down indicate what's important to us, even if it's just next week's grocery list. Surely, this principle must apply, then, when we look at a recipe for vanilla ice cream, the instructions for which were preserved for posterity by Thomas Jefferson's own hand. He's credited with being the first American that we know of to pen a recipe that helped popularize vanilla ice cream. The ingredients list was simple: just some cream, egg yolks, sugar, and a stick of vanilla, a recipe he likely acquired during the time he spent in France as America's first secretary of state. 

Jefferson liked ice cream so much that he reportedly had 50 vanilla bean pods shipped from France for the treat. And those he had hidden in newspapers to avoid customs costs. He also had other items related to the making of ice cream, like an ice cream ladle and a freezer, shipped from France to the U.S., allowing him to further support his ice cream habit.

And like Washington, he boasted an icehouse on his property, ready to produce ice cream when the time came. He wasn't shy about serving it, either. Ice cream was on the menu at his home at least six times. And given that Mary Randolph, kin to Jefferson by marriage, wrote a cookbook that included more than 20 ice cream recipes, it seems likely that his taste buds were exposed to far more ice cream flavors than just the plain vanilla.

Thanks to the presidential records being what they are, we know that a food fight nearly broke out during the wild party that was Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural ball. This was thanks in large part to the fact that Honest Abe didn't arrive at the party until 10:30 p.m. And the food? Well, it wasn't even brought out until around midnight. The 4,000-ish guests tripped all over themselves to get to the spread, with some resorting to carrying big trays of food over the heads of other revelers just to ensure they got their share. It's also thanks to a surviving menu from the affair that we know that six kinds of ice cream were served at the presidential soiree: vanilla, lemon, white coffee, chocolate, maraschino, and the former president's likely favorite, burnt almond.

The burnt almond ice cream would have been similar to caramel ice cream today, and like the almond cake that Lincoln loved so much, it was full of chopped almonds. While there are no documents that say outright that burnt almond was Lincoln's favorite, there is secondary evidence that suggests it. It is known that Mary Todd Lincoln served an almond cake while courting the former president and that his second inaugural menu included almond cake, the almond ice cream, and whole almonds. It's also quite telling that Lincoln is said to have cared little about food to the point of sometimes leaving his food untouched for hours whenever work consumed him. Given all of this, expressing a predilection for almond-anything suggests how much our 16th president liked the stuff.

Officially, Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the United States, is said to have loved peach ice cream, according to the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library. Makes sense. He hailed from peach country in Texas and so loved peach ice cream that he and his wife, Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson, ate homemade peach ice cream often. The bespoke ice cream was made by Lady Bird Johnson herself and contained at least a half a gallon of peaches, whipped cream, and eggs, making it closer to frozen custard than ice cream. Sounds divine, really.

But that's not where the story of LBJ's love of ice cream ends. In 1966, LBJ was in Topsham, Maine, en route to a planned campaign event in Lewiston, Maine, when he made such a stop at a local Dairy Queen, owned by Priscilla and Roland Laganiere. On the auspicious day, the Laganieres' 10-year-old daughter, Jane, created a sign on behalf of the DQ, inviting Johnson to pause his wanderings long enough to get a cone on the house. Photographic evidence from the event shows that LBJ's favorites — for the day anyway — were chocolate and vanilla ice cream, one flavor for each hand.

In fact, it isn't an exaggeration to say that Johnson's love of the creamy cold stuff was practically legendary. Case in point? When the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, got a revamp in 2013, the BBC did a write-up of the event and recommended a stop at a local ice cream shop, Amy's Ice Cream, to commemorate the museum's refurb and LBJ's love of ice cream.

For some of the U.S. presidents on this list, figuring out their favorite flavor of ice cream has required a bit of detective work and more than a little bit of inference, based on the historical record. After all, who knew during President George Washington's time, for example, whether this Great American Experiment would last long enough to actually require the keeping of official presidential records, including information about a president's beloved ice cream flavor? Not so with Gerald Ford. His favorite ice cream, butter pecan, is preserved for posterity right on the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum website. 

It's easy to see why he loved this flavor so much. With ingredients such as heavy cream, brown sugar, and chopped pecans, Ford's favorite treat was rich and creamy, perfect for serving at a birthday party or for taking a break during a long day of presidential duties. In the former case, Ford's wife, Betty, surprised him with a birthday celebration in the private residences of the White House that included butter pecan ice cream. The year was 1975, and Ford was celebrating his 62nd birthday and the near-culmination of his first year in office when all that birthday ice cream was busted out.

In the latter case, Ford was about to board a plane when the start of the trip was briefly paused. It seems that a man chased down the president, paper bag waving in hand. It was an offering -– butter pecan ice cream -– which prompted Ford to grab three spoons and say, "Well, I can't eat it all myself," according to Wood TV. Indeed.

One might assume that, as the former leader of the free world, Bill Clinton is the epitome of decisiveness. Probably, this is mostly true, except when it comes to choosing ice cream flavors. In that case, if one flavor's good, two must be even better. Once, while visiting Pennsylvania State University in 1996, the former president stopped at one of the best known ice cream shops in the country, the Berkey Creamery, and ordered a scoop of the shop's Peachy Paterno. He then asked for a second scoop of the cold stuff — Cherry Quist — to be added to that first scoop. Evidently, you can't mix ice cream flavors at Penn State's campus creamery, thanks to concerns about cross-contamination. The shop made an exception for Clinton, just that once.

Clinton himself said that had he known about the restaurant's rule, he would have only ordered the one flavor. And, in fact, America's 42nd president did just stick to the one flavor, the peach, on a subsequent visit to Berkey Creamery in 2000. He also brought home a couple of gallons of the stuff, demonstrating just how much he liked the flavor.

In 2010, Bill Clinton adopted a primarily vegan diet due to heart-health issues, so nowadays, sorbet replaces ice cream in his diet. What hasn't changed is his want for more than one flavor. Case in point? In 2016, the former president stopped by Cincinnati's Graeter's Ice Cream shop after taking part in the Union Picnic at Coney Island. After smiling for selfies and persuading the locals to vote for Hillary Clinton for president, he settled on two sorbet flavors: raspberry and lemon.

Apparently, there's one ice cream flavor that Joe Biden can't get enough of –- chocolate chip. The flavor is so synonymous with the former president that wherever he goes, you can bet it's an ice-cream-forward deal, with the speckled flavor leading the way. Take a stop Biden once made in Ohio: It was him and chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream all the way. Or how about when his granddaughter, Naomi Biden, got married? Affirmative. Chocolate chip ice cream was on the menu.

In fact, he's so known for loving the flavor that Big Red, White, and Biden, a version of his favorite with a fancy name tacked onto it, can be found on the campus of Cornell University. But there isn't just one ice cream that drew inspiration from Biden. Jeni's Splendid's White House Chocolate Chip is also a nod to America's 46th President. In the latter case, the concoction isn't just vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips. It teems with chocolate flakes and bits of chocolate-covered waffle cones that practically fight for the taste bud's attention in every bite. Now, that's presidential influence done right.