It’s the Summer of the Popsicle, With Wild Flavors Popping Up Across America

Some Island Pops flavors: sorrel (red), mango (yellow). Creamy Spot flavors: Girl Next Door (white—vanilla with kiwi), Wake Me Up(brown—Java chocolate chip), the Switch Up (pink—strawberry and vanilla cream).

Photograph by Ted + Chelsea Cavanaugh for Bloomberg Businessweek

Kate Krader

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A hundred-plus years ago in California, 11-year-old Frank Epperson accidentally invented the popsicle when he mixed a powdered drink and water and left it out on a cold night. In Mexico, the origin story of paletas dates to around the 1940s, to a town called Tocumbo in the fruit-growing region Michoacán on the west coast.

Now, every summer, popsicles reannounce themselves in such a rainbow of styles that they can both reassure you with their familiarity and delight you with their novelty. (Case in point: last year's $10 Eat the Rich popsicles from a Brooklyn, New York, artist collective in the shapes of recognizable wealthy individuals such as Elon Musk.)