I Hunted Down A Bubble O’Bill Ice Cream Tub To Check If It Has A Bubblegum Nose

You may have heard the rumours that Streets sneakily released a tub version of their 90’s classic Bubble O’Bill. This is all well and good, but literally the only two reasons for ever buying that particular ice-cream was the real chocolate backing and the big ol’ bubblegum nose — so are those still featured in the tub?

Being the super serious investigative journalist that I am, I tracked it down to find out. Well, actually, I enlisted the help of my family to track it down. Hear me out before you judge me.

It’s hard to find. It doesn’t seem like Streets have officially announced the new creation, for whatever reason, so they’ve just randomly popped up in select IGAs. So far they’ve been spotted in Ritchies IGA, Donge’s Supa IGA and Ashcroft’s IGA Irskine Park.

I live in Sydney’s inner-west, and a quick ring around to my local IGAs yielded nothing more than that “god I hate customers who don’t make sense” tone of confusion — so it’s safe to say they have no clue it’s even a thing.

However I can confirm that Oakhill IGA is also stocking it, which is way further than I’m prepared to travel right now, but conveniently near my family — thus asking them to help.

The verdict: there is no real chocolate to be seen, and the bubblegum nose has been replaced with small, crunchy ‘bubblegum flavoured’ pieces that are definitely not bubblegum.

Yeah, that’s a no from me, sorry. Without the real nose I have no reason to try it. Although apparently my four-year-old nephew is all about it, probably because he’s too young to know the real reason you ate a Bubble O’Bill.

“I reckon these are in the same vein as the arbitrary ones they did a few years ago where the flavours are all cheap and fake tasting and too expensive for what it is,” said my sister, absolutely telling it like it is.

“The ice-cream is like a fake caramel flavour. So [my aforementioned nephew], being a kid, loved all the fake super sweet over the top flavours but I found it gross. But yeah, $9 is too much for the quality of what it is — that’s connoisseur price”.

Full disclaimer though, of the two of us, I was the Bubble O’Bill fan and my sister was not. Although, as you may have noticed, I ate them for the bubblegum nose and only ate the ice-cream part because otherwise I’d get into trouble for wasting it. Which begs the question why didn’t I just get bubblegum as a treat, to which I have no good answer.

The light at the end of this story is that Streets have also released a tub of their Rainbow Paddlepop and Golden Gaytime into those same IGAs, which is what I used to choose when I actually wanted to enjoy the ice-cream.

UPDATE: There’s now been an official announcement from Streets, and their new tub range will be in Woolies across the Woolies across the Eastern Seaboard from July 15, and across the country by mid-next week.

(Lead Image: Provided by author)