11 Bomb Pop Flavors, Ranked

Growing up, I seemed to have a keen ear for the ice cream truck. Every week in the summer, it would make its way through our neighborhood, and I could typically hear it from several blocks away. With the first few notes of its happy little tune, I would run into my parents' room and gather coins from the tray my father kept extra change in for this specific purpose. 

With my little sister in hand, we would carefully run out to the ice cream truck and choose our favorite, pushing the shiny quarters across the counter into the truck. Often, I would select a strawberry shortcake ice cream bar, but was also known to choose a popsicle. In such instances, a go-to favorite of mine was none other than one of the best ice cream truck classics out there, the Bomb Pop. In those days, Bomb Pops were pretty limited in offerings, and it was pretty much the patriotic treat I was limited to. With freezer cases full of different flavors, those who enjoy Bomb Pops are spoiled for choice.

Today, I see the ice cream truck less frequently, but as a food writer, I also get to enjoy such activities as tasting my way through different popsicle flavors one right after another. Over the course of several afternoons, I endeavored to taste and rank the different varieties of Bomb Pop. You might know these popsicles as firecrackers, rocket pops, or even zoom lollies, depending on where you grew up, but to me, they've always been Bomb Pops, regardless of the flavor profile (of which there's an impressive number).

There may always be money in the banana stand, but if the chocolate-covered frozen bananas from "Arrested Development" tasted anything like these, I can't imagine why they're popular enough to bring in any cash, as the phrase might suggest. In any case, this popsicle is confusing. There are layers of chocolate and banana fudge, nothing like you might expect from the typical popsicle flavor.

I found that the chocolate layer tasted strikingly like Nesquik powder or hot chocolate powder, but it was as if the hot chocolate had been made with water instead of milk, a far inferior way to make hot chocolate. The flavor doesn't have anything about it that tastes especially like a quality sweetener or chocolate. The banana parts reminded me of the flavor of those hard yellow candies I always avoided in hard candy fruit mixes. The combined effect was a strange mixture for popsicles, and though it didn't taste bad, it was odd.

Part of the reason this popsicle tasted so different from other Bomb Pops was that it actually was quite a bit different from other flavors. While other flavors aren't really ice cream, the banana fudge was more of an ice cream bar than popsicle, even containing milk, with skim milk being the very first ingredient listed on the box.

Those hard little sweet candies that are best eaten in small handfuls were based on cereal. The cereal was a creation of the 1970s, but the candy didn't make its emergence until 1965. Though these were once a Wonka candies brand, they are now owned by Ferrara Candy. The line has ropes and gummies, combining the gooey with the crunchy. These Bomb Pops add one more texture: icy sweetness.

Even before my first lick, the very first thing I noticed is that the colors on this variety were much duller than the other flavors I sampled. In fact, the grape color had more of a brown hue to it than an actual purple. It was as if the purple had been mixed with the other coloring to make a muddy sort of feel. Thankfully, the flavors didn't taste brown, just the color.

My first few bites, I enjoyed the flavor. It very much tasted every bit like those small Nerds candies, so it was sweet and enjoyable. However, the sweetness built up quite a bit, and before long, it had an overwhelming sugariness to it that made the popsicle difficult to get through. In fact, I even noticed a little aftertaste I didn't particularly enjoy. This aftertaste wasn't present on any of the other popsicles, and was the primary reason I ranked this one on the low side overall.

It's amazing how the taste of particular food items can bring you right back to a memory or an experience. To me, orange Crush soda will forever be best enjoyed in a can, from the soda machine, while cleaning laundry during hot summer days at campgrounds. The best part of these sodas is the crispness of the drink. Sure, the fact that they are fruity flavors is enjoyable, but Crush just isn't Crush without carbonation. That's my biggest complaint about this flavor of Bomb Pop: It doesn't have that fizz that makes Crush what it is.

The flavors were tasty as fruity offerings, but I wished they were labeled as something else. There were layers of grape, strawberry, and orange, but the grape was probably the most potent flavor in the stack. I found it interesting that the Crush flavored popsicles have the same types of flavors as other varieties I sampled. Given that Crush has options like pineapple, watermelon, peach, and grapefruit, the Crush offerings would be more interesting if the flavors were different from some of the other fruity-type flavors. Granted, the Crush regional cream soda that should be available everywhere might not need to be a Bomb Pop. Crush can keep that one as a soda.

Most of the time, these popsicle flavors don't really smell like anything. As soon as you open the package, you're not necessarily met with an overwhelming scent. However, Candy Clash was a different story. In scent, these were just like hard candy pieces, but taste was a different story.

In what I expected to remind me of something like Jolly Ranchers, I got much more of a cotton candy taste than anything else. The combination of the hard candy smell and cotton candy flavor was confusing, but that didn't necessarily make it a poor taste. I really enjoyed the blue flavor I sampled on top, and the strawberry and watermelon were good, too. Other Bomb Pop flavors had watermelon represented by pink, but here, it was actually green. I expected the green to be something like lime or apple; even still, the flavor was enjoyable, even if it was a different color than I expected.

If you love the original Bomb Pop, but want more interesting flavors, you might enjoy the Hawaiian Punch flavor more. The Hawaiian Punch variety had three layers of flavor, including the brand's fruity juicy red, ocean orange, and the oddly named green berry rush. Not all popsicles had the same ordering of flavors, as some had orange on top, while others had red.

Though it would happen a few times with other flavors; the Hawaiian Punch Bomb Pop was the first popsicle I had where the top flavor actually popped off after one lick. That is, the whole top color came off, falling to the counter I ate over. With some of the other flavors, the top flavor would pop off after a bite; this one didn't even give me the chance to do that.

I really enjoyed these flavors, and since Hawaiian Punch was originally created to be an ice cream topping, it makes for a great popsicle flavor. Compared to others, they fell very much in the middle of the Bomb Pop order because there's a type of flavor that you would expect from a popsicle. These felt like the kind of popsicle you would enjoy while lounging at the pool with palm trees swaying overhead. This flavor was a baseline of sorts. Though it's not the original Bomb Pop flavor, it feels like a clash of popsicle flavors in the shape of the classic pop. For that reason, it's easy to imagine this one being a quick favorite among young and old popsicle fans alike.

Generally, the Extremes line was some of my favorite flavors. Typically, I am all for sour candies and treats, but the Extremes Super Sour Blue Raspberry may very well have been too sour (something I don't often admit to). As a kid, Warheads were my favorite candies, even if those now seem less mouth-puckeringly sour than they used to be. In those days, the cost of eating so many meant I would nearly paralyze my taste buds for days. The blue ones were always some of the strongest sour candies I had ever had. These couple of layers appeared to be following suit.

In each of the Extremes flavors, the top flavor was the most sour, moving all the way down to sweet with the bottom flavor. For some of the Extremes flavors, the difference between the sour levels is obvious. But in the case of the blue raspberry ones, the super sour level was so very sour that it almost drowned out any kind of flavor difference in the subsequent levels. Another piece I liked about some of the other flavors were the different types of flavor. That is, they have different fruits in there as well. The blue raspberry did not. Instead of offering different fruits that complement each other, I got an ambiguous blue raspberry experience throughout the entire popsicle. While the Extremes Super Sour Blue Raspberry was my least favorite of the Extremes, I still enjoyed it more than many of the other flavors.

I have an embarrassing confession: Before this tasting, I did not know that Bomb Pops offered more than one flavor, and I wrongly assumed that the classic Bomb Pop was the only one out there. In red, white, and blue as though it's all decked out for an Independence Day firework display, with patriotism on full display, it's no surprise that the treat made its debut during the Cold War.

The colors here represent flavors of cherry, lime, and blue raspberry. Cherry comes across as the typical cherry flavor you know from candy and sweet treats. The lime reminded me of an Italian ice flavor; it's not a super lime strong flavor but rather more citrusy. The blue raspberry reminded me of the blue ICEEs available in those machines that spin about ice and flavor. All told, it remains one of the best Bomb Pops you can get. My husband and son especially liked this one; it was easily their favorite. I don't rank it higher because I simply enjoyed other flavors more.

Very few of the Bomb Pop varieties are labeled as one flavor, but the watermelon box says simply "watermelon" in bold writing. On it is a picture of a pink and green popsicle. Looking at the colors, it would be easy to assume that the green represents the rind, while the reddish color is the flesh of the watermelon. However, that green is actually a lime layer.

It's curious that Bomb Pop would choose to add that lime element in there, but it worked well with the watermelon. After all, watermelon can generally be a pretty mild flavor, seemingly a little, well, watery in its overall flavoring and not really very vibrant. The lime helped to counter this muted flavor, even if the watermelon flavor was more of a Jolly Rancher flavor than anything attempting to mimic a real slice of watermelon fruit. Since two of the layers were the same watermelon flavor, the lime in between acted as a nice palate cleanser between parts.

While watermelon's green layer is lime, the Extremes Super Sour Strawberry popsicle's bright green layer is a super sour strawberry layer. While this was a little strange, apart from the color, the green layer is very tasty, and it reminded me of the kind of strawberry you get with suckers.

As the first popsicle I tried, it was the flavor that introduced me to the texture of these Bomb Pops, which I was very skeptical about. It's smooth, almost milky, similar to Dairy Queen's StarKiss Treats I loved as a kid. Even though a majority of these flavors do not have a trace of milk creaminess to them. It was not at all like the frozen Bomb Pop I remember from my childhood. The texture was improved and it wasn't just an ice pop anymore. Since these strawberry layers weren't as sour to begin with as the blue raspberry, I enjoyed the flavors of each one without feeling like the degree of flavor and sweetness was dulled by the earlier overly sour flavor.

The strawberry sour was enjoyable, but I've always been even more of a cherry fan, so of all the Extremes I sampled, the cherry limeade was the flavor I was most excited about. In fact, between all of the popsicle options, it was the one I saved for last, eager for it to be different, but still familiar.

Ultimately, I found that it came in second place, but that shouldn't disparage the flavor of this offering. Like the blue raspberry which reminded me of Warheads, the cherry level in the cherry limeade felt very much like the black cherry Warheads I loved as a kid. And, it was my favorite flavor. The flavors played very well together and complemented each other nicely. Again, this was another flavor that surprised me in its sheer flavor saturation, especially coming from Bomb Pop.

I have always been a fan of all things red candy. Cough drops? Always red. The best Starburst? Cherry, of course, and ICEEs? The blue is good, but the red is better. This Berry Burst flavor had layers of raspberry, cherry, and strawberry, in that order. It was easily my favorite popsicle overall.

Tasting the Berry burst, I was very excited by the cherry flavor. That is, what I thought was cherry flavor. It was perfectly tart and sweet, just like I like my tart cherry juice to be. Ultimately, I found out the flavor sitting right on top was actually raspberry rather than cherry, and well, I can't necessarily say that I agree with the flavor profile; the taste was still great, even if it was a little bit off from what I expected. In fact, all three berry flavors were uniquely flavored. This is especially important in a berry-flavored anything because otherwise you end up with an amalgamation of berry flavors that make it very difficult to determine any kind of real flavor. Those who never enjoy that mixed berry or wildberry inconsistent, and oddly indeterminant taste will still enjoy this berry burst option. All told, it's the perfect Bomb Pop flavor for those who regularly get the fruity candies, dedicated to the red options, like Starburst, for example.

It's always a treat when I have a family member helping me with a ranking. For this Bomb Pop popsicle ranking, my son helped me try a couple of the flavors. Although he tends to be pretty picky when it comes to unknown foods, he was very excited about these choices, and we may have even stumbled upon a few favorites. For the course of a couple of days, I set in for a sugar-fueled afternoon, trying one popsicle after another.

Since the popsicles largely had the same texture, I mostly ranked the flavors on how enjoyable they were to eat, and how closely they aligned to the intended flavor on the package. The best of the best were not only tasty, but also seemed to mimic exactly what they were going for.