It’s October and Halloween is just a few weeks away, signaling the beginning of Candy Season!
This candy ranking focuses on candy that you get while trick-or-treating, and is based on appearance of the candy wrapper, appearance of the naked bar or candy, flavor, texture, and aroma.
To condense this ranking of over 35 candies, I’ll list my top ten best, and my top ten worst.
Top Ten Best Halloween Candies
- Snickers
- Kit Kat
- Twix
- Whatchamacalit
- Rolo
- Almond Joy
- Candy Corn
- Baby Ruth
- Milky Way
- Skittles
Top Ten Worst Halloween Candies
1. Lifesavers
2. Tootsie Rolls
3. Necco Wafers
4. Dots
5. Dum Dum Lollipops
6. Whoppers
7. Mounds
8. Laffy Taffy
9. Sweetarts
10. Runts
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, which are in the middle of the list at No. 15, aren’t higher, despite it being the number one selling candy in America, because of the texture. This may cause controversy with the masses of Reese’s fans, but open your mind for a minute. When you bite into a Reese’s cup, it’s like biting into semi-moist but hardened sand, and there’s no creaminess like real peanut butter. You need to go to Trader Joe’s and try their PB cups. It’ll be a revelation when you taste the superior cups. I simply can’t go back to eating Reese’s after knowing the joy of Trader Joe’s peanut butter cups.
If I was on a desert island, and I could only bring three Halloween candies, I would take Snickers, Kit Kat and Twix. Snickers has the perfect caramel to peanut ratio, and nougat to caramel ratio. I could eat Snickers for the rest of my island life, and never get sick of them. Kit Kat’s distinctive flavor from the filling in between the wafers is unlike any other candy, hence Kit Kat being my second, desert island Halloween candy. The crispy texture of the layered wafers is so satisfying, and each bar of a Kit Kat is embossed with its name. Letters printed on M&M’s and Skittles are graphically dull and fading, while the bars embossed with Kit Kat and HERSHEY are like permanent engravings set in stone, that will stand the test of time. Until they’re devoured on Halloween night. Kit Kat popularity is a global thing and Japan’s Kit Kats are available in over 350 flavors, like matcha, adzuki bean, glazed sweet potatoes, and yubari melon. And for the people who like to prove their strength and heartiness by eating really hot peppers and spices, you know the ones- despite the sweat dripping from their forehead, and the sizzling stomach lining, they say “I can take it.” I think the macho pepper people would enjoy a hot bar of wasabi Kit Kat. Maybe the next Kit Kat flavor will be ghost pepper or scotch bonnet Kit Kat.
My third desert island Halloween candy is Twix. When I tried my first Twix, I thought “cookies in my caramel and chocolate? Blasphemy! I will revolt!” I would scrape off the caramel/chocolate layer with my teeth, and eat it first, and then the bare cookie. Now years later, I appreciate Twix in its entirety, as a candy with an ensemble cast, chocolate, caramel, and cookie united, as one, but made into two bars. If I was on a desert island with Twix, I would be happy to have two food groups to sustain me-cookie and candy.
Looking back on Halloween as a kid, it was one of the best days of the year. My sister and I would dump out our candy bags after trick-or-treating and survey our loot. Then I would yell out dramatically “IT’S ALL MINE!” followed by an evil laugh, like a Scooby Doo villain. I felt like I was getting away with something, especially with Fun Dip and Pixy Stix, because they weren’t normally allowed in our house. I always felt like the black cat that ate the canary on Halloween.
The nostalgia factor for me, is strongly tied to my sense of smell. Whenever I smell the aroma of stale tootsie rolls, mixed with an artificial fruit odor, it puts me right back in my childhood room, with my hidden stash of closet candy. After finishing all the good candy, the bottom of my trick-or-treat pile was left with a few Tootsie Rolls, and some mini rolls of Lifesavers.
The dailymeal.com map of the most popular Halloween candy in each state, had a few interesting choices. Delawareans love their Lifesavers. My first thought after learning this was “there’s something rotten in Delaware.” Are you telling me that most Delawareans would choose a roll of hard candy over a Crunch bar or a Milky Way? I think not. Could it be that the Lifesavers company is the one that created this map of candy, to boost its brand exposure, to sell more candy?” What else could explain such an abomination. According to dailymeal.com, the state of Texas is singularly responsible for keeping Starburst in business. But aren’t they all just eating the pink and red ones, and throwing out the other flavors like I do? I think there must be a tremendous landfill in Texas, that’s piled high with lemon and lime Starbursts.
My lists of the best and the worst Halloween candies, is probably different than yours. (Doesn’t everyone rank their candy?) Soon enough, Candy Season will be over, and we must carry on bravely, without our Halloween sugar fix.
